#felassan romance

[vir-bellanaris]

Solas left Lavellan because he was terrified of her becoming another Felassan. Another Mythal.

I don't think there's any doubt, if she had come between him and his plans, he would have had no choice but to neutralize her as well.

[felassan]

me and felassans ghost

[crownedinmarigolds]

Felassan and Fen'Harel for sadplatypus on my Ko-Fi~ Some indulgent Dragon Age art of our ancient faves...

[aqun-athlok]

i can't believe solas has like four messy as hell divorces and rook gets thrown in the middle of all of them

[maabelasdaruth]

So now that I've decided that Felassan is Amelin's absentee father, it's really fun to think of all the random genetic mannerisms of his she would have. They have the same crease in their nose when they snicker, how their eyes crinkle in a full faced smile, and the arching of their eyebrows when they're trying to not comment on how stupid what they just heard was.

Really fun to torture Solas with seeing the ghost of his best friend in the girl he falls in love with.

~It's just the vallaslin~ he tells himself, that's why Amelin reminds him of Felassan.

[redwinesupernoova]

You and i are vastly different. You look at Solas obviously thinking about Mythal in the balcony scene and think "Wow Mythal is such a bitch for manipulating (stealing) him!", I look at it and think "Wow! Solas is such a piece of shit!".

The misogyny is getting tiring guys 💋

[whereismywarden]

god, i love this man 😂

[citrusai]

mythal was basically solas' faghag when he was pining for felassan but whatever.

[babe-a-yaga]

Template by @dalishious

[baphometsss]

The Inquisitor's need to hear from Rook about how Solas helped them rescue the Dalish Clan is really interesting if they're Dalish, and especially so if you play as romanced Lavellan.

By his own admission in Trespasser, Solas didn't see anyone around him as true people in the beginning of DAI. In fact, he kills Felassan for refusing to help him any longer and suggesting that the modern elves deserved a chance.

It's why the Inquisitor needs to hear it from Rook, that he actually did save their lives. 'He's always thinking about where it ends.' He wants to be remembered as more than what the Dalish currently remember him as. He wants his sacrifices to mean something to the modern elves, for them to recognise the evils of the Evanuris and see that they are not worth worshipping. It stung him badly to see that his legacy was just as the great adversary, because it suggests that the elves who remained after the fall of Elvhenan did not think much of him, even after all he did for them. That one codex from the Vir Dirthara in Trespasser shows that people knew what Fen'harel did and it was viewed almost like an act of terrorism.

The fact that the Inquisitor goes on to call out Solas's prideful nature reflects that. He can't bear to be seen as truly evil because then he's as bad as his enemies, then all he did was for nothing.

He calls the Dalish 'our people' to an elven Rook, and I don't think he's lying, there. He didn't really have any reason to save the Dalish Clan. He could've let them die. He even describes saving them as a privilege, almost like he's atoning for what he did to the elves by protecting their children. Of course, he knows a lot more people will die when the veil comes down, and it doesn't make it any easier , as he says in Trespasser.

It's interesting for the Inquisitor to bring this up though, because it shows that they've been wondering if their time together in the Inquisition had any effect on him at all, if their pursuit of him over the years has changed him in any way. They're looking for tangible signs that he doubts himself, and that he actually wants his mind to be changed.

A romanced Lavellan will say that he forbade them from following him because he didn't want them to see what he would become, but that they don't believe this is the true reason. They know him better than anyone, they got closer to the real him than most. They know he doesn't really want to do it. They know he can't accept the notion that all the terrible things he's done have been for nothing. They know he's acting from a place of grief and trauma. Saving the Dalish Clan was just the proof they had been looking for.

[vir-bellanaris]

Okay listen. Solas has done so much damage, caused so much pain and quite literally destroyed lives. Despite the sympathetic nature of his character, a happy sunset and butterflies ending would ring hollow.

As much as I love him.

Elio and Nadia being torn asunder because of him. Don't get me started on Felassan and Briala.

Like...he doesn't deserve a happy ending.

[darlinglute]

i think it's extremely fun to pair rook and solas together in any regard, no matter if he previously was being romanced because as clear narrative foils, having an enemies to lovers (and in tandem, bitch4bitch, hater x hater) dynamic feeds into that delicious 'whenever I see you I see myself and I hate that' and 'you are everything I hate about myself' soup.

I once saw a post with a collection of quotes that had this certain vibe, in the 'you and I are the same' (negative) way. if i had a quote to represent them it would be:

so shipping them feels very complex and interesting to think about, because, like in that one dialogue

(first of all, like c'mon) furthermore it's the cycle. rook is to solas what solas was to elgar'nan, there are several times in the game, especially the end, where they can see each other in each other. even if you dont see it in a shipping lenses (which you dont have to!) this is a juicy story.

moreover, at the end of the game if rook outwits solas by giving him the fake ritual dagger, solas not only recognizes that he was out played by 'wits alone' he also says that he's met his match. this mimics the several stories of fen'harel who uses his wits, wisdom etc to get out of a situation

(example: the story of fen'harel, andruil and anaris, solas goading them both into fighting each other so he could get out paralleling solas making rook fight the gods and in addition a thousand other enemies in order to get himself enough time to get out of the fade prison without rook getting ahead of it)

the betrayal too, i don't have much to say that hasn't been said already about the prison switcheroo, (evokes solas's betrayal of felassan yada yada) other then it's really tasty.

[ir-abelas-vhenan]

I've been thinking a lot today about how easily people condemn Solas for making the choices he did or for so regularly refusing the help and love his friends or a romanced Lavellan extended to him and how that's a very easy thing to do from behind a screen in a fictional game where you are able to (with very few exceptions) curate a world in which your allies are loyal and your decisions will go the way you'd like them to.

And yeah, it's a game and that's kind of the point, but if I were to look at it a little more deeply (and who am I kidding, I got back on this website exclusively to process the aftermath of Veilguard) I'd say that there's so much to be found in wondering if the protagonists in any of the other games would have fared better in similar conditions.

Apparently I can't stop making long posts, so buckle in.

What would Morrigan have become in a world where the Warden never stumbled upon her cottage with Flemeth, if she never got the chance to see more of the world and decide what she wanted out of it? With just her mother (who, coincidentally in this Solas-y discussion is also kind of Mythal) and no support, who is to say what she would have unleashed upon the Korcari Wilds one day when the confines of her cage became too much?

What about Leliana? She, too, suffered at the hands of a very controlling abuser who tried to convince her that one lifestyle was all that her future held. What do we think she would have become if not for a chance meeting in Lothering with someone who could help her face down the woman that molded her?

Fenris, a character MANY people are just fine with was incredibly ready to kill a mage on sight if need be, no questions asked. Where do we think his story goes if he doesn't have someone in his corner early on enough in the game? If he doesn't get caught by Danarius, he's almost certainly going to end up on a murder spree, and he doesn't even have Justice whispering in his head to do it.

Cullen. Just all of him. It's an absolute miracle he hasn't snapped by the time you encounter him in Inquistion, and even then you get the benefit of intervening at a critical point in his story several times over.

Almost every other character could face this analysis and I think we'd reach a result that suggests perhaps the only thing keeping them lovable is your playable character's investment in their well-being.

Enter Solas. We don't meet him when he's twenty to thirty something and on the precipice of falling down a dark path. He's been there for literal millennia already, and with the exception of one close friend he's been alone. And not even Felassan is enough because of the years Mythal had prior to that friendship to make Solas exactly who she needed him to be.

I've had shit friends before that aren't just good at isolating people, they're naturals. I barely made it through high school with my mental health in place (in fact, looking back, it almost certainly wasn't). When you think you've got a true friend and they need something of you, it's so easy to blindly follow them because you think your love is enough to mark someone's soul as trustworthy. Solas doesn't learn that lesson until it's too late, and even when he does he can't turn back: the spirit that was once Wisdom has been exposed to several of the worst ancient elves to ever exist and now he has to stand his ground rather than let it all fall, because that is what Pride would dictate. Admitting that the person you gave your love and labor and time to is a monster is hard. And he was alone.

Give me Morrigan after centuries with her mother. Show me Leliana after the years have become a blur and the only voice whispering in her ear is Marjolaine's. Show me the innocent mages that don't make it through if all Fenris has for years and years and years are the scars Danaris left him and the means to make more. Show me Cullen if he stays in a chain of command under a Knight Commander who knows exactly what he fears and holds it over his head for so long he forgets what it was like to be an excited kid begging the templars for training because he just wants to keep people safe.

We get companions in these games who are broken by the time they're twenty. Solas has spent thousands of years in servitude to a cause of a woman he believed to be his only friend. He doesn't know who he is without her influence, anymore, only exists physically in the first place because she asked it of him and then asked again and again and again. He doesn't have a witty band of merry fools to pull him out of that cycle. He has Felassan, but he has him during war after war after war in the hopes of freeing others from the very situation that torments him.

Trauma from war affects everyone touched by it, nevermind the fact that Solas is actively responsible for saving the lives of thousands and feels each life like a weight around his neck because maybe he can save them like he cannot save himself. We should always be worried about the people trying to do the most good. Who is looking out for them? Why are they so determined to help others? Could it be that it's something they wish others had done for them?

Solas certainly feels comradery with Felassan from working together to free slaves from the very people he helped put in power because Mythal told him it would be okay only to leave him with the pieces, but even the Solas that Felassan knows has been turned into an attack dog shying away from the touch of the very person it desires to be near above all others by the time their relationship forms.

The fact that Solas is able to try and show the Inquisitor who he is at all is a miracle as far as I'm concerned, a sign of a peaceful spirit of Wisdom who loves knowledge for the sake of it finally sensing that there might be a chance to embrace its nature again.

Yeah, if you give him what he has come to expect from people with power, if you let near-absolute power over the masses corrupt you, he's going to bristle and try to shut your inquisitor down.

But if you show him even the smallest bit of kindness? If you treat him like the starving wolf he talks about and feed him instead of fighting him? God, it shatters his entire existence.

It's called a cycle of abuse for a reason. Finding friendship, finding the love of your long-ass life can be the first step in realizing there's better out there. But the time it takes to learn that? When you're too weary to even reach out for help in the first place and afraid of every kind word or gesture because you've never known such tenderness (on a platonic OR romantic level, both matter so so much) before?

Part of the compelling tragedy of Solas is that it's almost Orpheus-like how he knows what he has been made into and still cannot stop himself from yearning for more, from turning around to see if just this once something has changed. You can't convince me that he hasn't spent years hoping that someone will hear the legend of the Dread Wolf and see it for what it is, a leash the Evanuris created for Mythal's whipping boy to ensure that even if he ever escapes them, the people he fought to save will hate him. And I cannot blame him for the shock and terror that consumes him when he realizes someone finally has.

You give me any of dragon age companions after the amount of time Solas spent under Mythal's thumb without your character's intervention and you tell me how that looks.

You tell me if they're able to change at the first sign of something that feels too good to be true.

And then, I want you to tell me they're any less worthy of trying to save, especially when you know how good their best can be.

Solas might be hard for some fans to love, but it's only because he serves as the perfect representation of the beast we are all capable of becoming when the love that sustains us, assuming we receive any at all, is laced with poison.

The journey out of that place, out of a literal prison of regret, is brutal, and I'm thrilled that even with the many things about Veilguard I'm still struggling with, we have the chance to let Solas try again with the help of those who love him not because he never fell down, but because they believe in the beauty of a future where he gets back up again.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

this is not a fully formed thought yet im still working this out. but after reading other people's impressions and seeing some complaints about Solas' characterization in this game i do disagree, but i see where people are coming from in a way

when you (or a character) have a Spiraling Breakdown of personality and belief and everything else. theres 2 kinds of ways it goes: spiraling OUT vs spiraling IN. Outward spirals happen when you start acting out of character/unlike yourself, because who you are (or used to be) failed. Inward spirals happen when instead you buckle down and commit to the one way though you can see, even if it keeps failing you, because maybe this time if you do it harder or better or more it will finally work.

in Inquisition we see Solas spiraling out. His world is shattered, everything's different, it's all his fault. And in response he desperately looks in every direction he can and grabs at anything he sees as being an option to set things right--using Corypheus, using the Inquisition, using whatever it will take. He loses his sense of self and who he is, he pretends to be someone else and falls into that character more than he expects because everything has gone so wrong he's trying to mentally distance himself from it. pretend it never happened, pretend he can turn back time, that this world isn't real. He mirrors your Inquisitor's treatment of him because the core of his own personality is so tangled he can't find his true self until the game ends, and we see him again in Trespasser.

in Veilguard we see him do the opposite. It might look like he's calm and focused but he's still spiraling, it's just inward this time. He has picked one core facet of himself and is becoming solely that aspect more and more and more. he's abandoning the parts of himself that he thinks don't serve this one goal he has fixated on, because this time he's not pretending he can turn back time--he knows that undoing it is not just erasing a new timeline it's altering the course of the current one. he can't look away from it but he also can't risk stopping. we see him as Fen'harel the war general who will do anything it takes no matter the consequence or personal cost, he lies and he tricks, and he leans into tricking you because that's his only out now. He can't stop and explain and make you see because he gave up the part of himself that can listen to alternatives. He's not calm and resolved, he's panicking--we see him make promises he can't keep like killing the Archdemon, so he's not just lying to us but himself. He kills Varric just like he killed Felassan just like he killed Mythal.

And that's also why it takes so much to snap him out of it. You can't appeal to the other parts of Solas--his love, his friendliness, his more lighthearted joking side. You can only beg your case to General Fen'harel, which is why you need the only one left who was also there to witness that part of him, Mythal. He cannot move forward or allow the other parts of himself, like the part of him that loves the Inquisitor if you romanced him, to surface until the spiral is shattered.

[kcwriter-blog]

More thoughts on Solavellan

I started replying to a post about the psychological aspect of Solavellan because it was interesting, well thought out and I thought good points were made but it got very long, and I had new thoughts. I wanted to put them down. This is not a criticism of that post in any way, it’s good and I urge people to read it. I just see things differently.

The big problem I have with most takes on Solavellan is how they take agency away from Lavellan whenever Solas is mentioned. We have a woman who grew to be one of the most powerful leaders in Thedas but when we talk about her and her feelings, she suddenly becomes this naive child desperately in love with the man who broke her heart. I just don’t see it. I don’t see a relationship – no matter how intense – of a few months, defining her going forward. So, let’s look at it.

Solas and Lavellan do love each other deeply. We don’t hear Lavellan say I love you until the breakup scene and she never calls him vehnan until Trespasser. Obviously, that is, as with most things in the romance, because it was a rushed, late add to the game. But it is interesting.

People get on Solas’ case for not defining the relationship, but I would argue she isn’t in a hurry to define it either. Which is smart. They haven’t been together long and one, the other, or both of them could die.

It’s possible that Crestwood is the first chance they have had to talk about it. I’ve never liked the first dialogue option because Lavellan seems genuinely surprised that up until now, she doesn’t know what to call Solas. Which is silly. They have been exclusive for a few months now. They are in love. She’s been calling him something and my guess is it is vhenan (her heart, home). And Solas fully intends to have that discussion. He just gets cold feet because what he has to tell her isn’t something she is going to believe.

Moving on. The valleslin scene has had a lot posted about it and I don’t want to get into it. I think what’s important is not whether it is removed or not but the idea that Solas alone destroys her faith by telling her the truth. Did he hammer the final nail in the coffin of her faith? Yes, but a smart Lavellan has to be questioning everything already. Why? Because she met Mythal.

Even before she meets the head of her pantheon, she has been to the Temple of Mythal and learned a lot that differs from her people’s mythology. She learns that Mythal was murdered, not locked away. She learns that the Dread Wolf had no part in that murder. She sees a depiction of the Dread Wolf in an antechamber of the temple in a guard dog position which is weird. If she drank from the Well, she has a lot of ancient elven voices in her head telling her stuff. If she didn’t, she would have Morrigan telling her the same stuff.

She meets ancient elves. And those elves don’t see her or the Dalish as their own. Just as a reminder, Solas isn’t the only ancient elf to have feelings about the Dalish. Abelas is very pointed about saying Lavellan isn’t one of his people. Felassan makes fun of the Dalish. Mythal says “the People bend the knee to easily” in DA2. Heck, Felassan thinks more of the city elves than he does of the Dalish. Solas eventually comes around. It’s a grudging respect but he does allow that they have some good qualities.

Lavellan meets Mythal and Mythal isn’t exactly a nice person. She has chosen to possess the body of a human, not an elf. She never helps the elves. So, you have an elven goddess in diminished form running around helping human heroes but doing nothing for the people that pray to her. That must rock her world and her faith.

Her faith is already on the ledge by Crestwood. Solas possibly pushes it over. And he never would have told her if he hadn’t messed up and changed his mind about the other thing. It’s all impulsive. He isn’t thinking straight, just covering his ass and it hurts her. However, I think he still intended to carry on the relationship without telling her the truth. During the kiss, he finally realizes that if he loves her so much he almost told her everything, then not telling her is morally wrong and he comes up with a reason to end it.

After the breakup, Lavellan is hurt. It always hurts when someone breaks up with you. What hurts the most is knowing he still loves her. What also hurts is he won’t give her a reason. I don’t think she is questioning everything he told her at this point. He’s just the cold-hearted son of a bitch who broke her heart.

Most of us have been there. We’ve got breakup playlists, alcohol and friends to help get us through it. I usually imagine my Lavellan grabbing Bull, Dorian and Cole to help her take out her anger on a poor unsuspecting dragon. I also put off triggering the Wicked Grace game until after the breakup.

That doesn’t mean she isn’t angry or crying on Josephine’s shoulder. Of course she is, but she isn’t questioning her life choices. She could tell Solas to get lost, but she keeps him around. She is even kind to him when the Orb is discovered broken.

And everyone is kind of busy planning to find and finish Corypheus off once and for all. I see her putting a pin in it. Once they win, she will confront him and demand answers.

She doesn’t get the chance because he leaves without saying goodbye. That has to hurt. I don’t see her in a place where she could never trust anyone ever again. It’s more likely, she throws daggers at a drawing of him out in the practice yard. Even if she still loves him, she is an adult not a maiden in distress. As much as she loves Solas, her entire world does not revolve around him.

Solas made his choice. She may be concerned about him - especially after Cole’s cryptic message - but I don’t see her searching frantically for him. He knows where she is and can send her a message if he needs her.  

And she is busy. She must help clean up the mess Cory made. She has rifts to close. She has dignitaries to meet. She has paperwork. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for pining.

There is an idea that Lavellan is alone because all of her inner circle except her advisors go off and do their own thing. Except that isn’t true. They write letters – which you can find exploring the Winter Palace – in those letters some of them mention having visited or that they will visit. Lavellan is also capable of making new friends. She is not static.

Solas leaving her may still hurt. She may have (and probably did) tried to move on but so far no one matched him for any number of reasons. She is only alone in the sense that any leader is alone. What she probably misses the most about Solas is that he always treated her like a person, not an icon.

Then we get to Trespasser. If you have found all the clues for the secret dialogue option, she has figured out Solas is the Dread Wolf long before she confronts him. She has seen the murals, learned his story. She knows the Dalish got it wrong. She knows from experience that the Dalish get a lot wrong. And he’s Solas. She might not know him as well as she thought but she saw beneath his mask a little. She isn’t going to be afraid of this figure out of Dalish legend. Mostly she is going to be pissed because he didn’t tell her the truth, because he didn’t trust her.

As far as the arm thing goes. Weekes and Epler have said, he did not amputate her arm. Solas drew out the magic that was killing her. The arm disintegrated. It was already doing so by the time she meets Solas. If he hadn’t drawn out the magic, she would have disintegrated just like Solas’ friend Wisdom. I think arguments that she would have trouble trusting anyone based on this are a non-starter

Once all that is over, will Lavellan have a hard time trusting anyone? She will have a hard time trusting Solas. Who wouldn’t? Will it color her perception of anyone she might want to be romantically involved with? For a few years maybe but what are the chances she will fall in love with another god?

Trust isn’t just about people you’ve been romantically linked with. She still trusts her inner circle. They help her. A bad experience with one person, no matter how much she may love him, isn’t going to make her stop trusting people entirely.

Now apart from Solavellan, I’m pretty sure Lavellan is messed up psychologically. You can’t go through what she did and not be a little messed up. But it is that experience that may make her empathize with Solas and understand why he left her.

She knows what it is like to be a leader. Not in the sense of leading her clan but in the sense that her decisions have huge consequences. She knows how a leader’s decisions are always second guessed - like they are at the Exalted Council if you chose to exile the Wardens. She knows what it is like to have to step up and be the one to save the world. She knows that sometimes there are no good choices, and you do the best you can. She knows it messes you up and you can lose your way. Solas has lost his.

Is it ten times harder to empathize when you loved that person, and they destroyed your trust? Yes. Solas will have to win her trust back. She will view anything he says or does with suspicion, as anyone would. However, Solas rarely outright lies. She knows this. She will be asking a lot more questions and be paying more attention. She also knows that he didn’t lie about loving her.

Okay, but he is still planning to tear down the Veil so he must not love her very much. Her love moved the needle. He went from believing nothing was real to thinking everyone is real. Is it so hard to imagine that Lavellan thinks he can be reasoned with? I doubt she thinks her love alone will change him. That doesn’t mean she won’t want to try. That doesn’t mean she will want him back when it’s all over. It also doesn’t mean she is a quivering mess obsessing over their relationship.

Solavellan can be whatever you want it to be, based on your own experiences. For some it's an angsty story with a Lavellan pining for him. For others, she gets over it fast with Cullen's help. For me, she is a strong, proud woman who is able to use her own experiences to empathize with Solas and want to save him from himself. She may still love him, but that love has been tempered by her experiences with him. They will need to have a long talk if they ever meet up again.