#golden halla

[lairofdragonagelore]

The Crossroads [DLC Trespasser]: Ancient Jail

The Ancient Jail is an abandoned jail, occupied by strange elven statues and shattered mirrors. There is almost no more information to get from it. It’s an ancient mystery. 

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

From the Isle that heads to the Shattered Library we can activate a dragon egg that will allow us to reach this place. It’s seems strange that the statue of Dragon Mythal is here. There are some broken eluvian and a lot of skeletons. 

We know this eluvian leads to a jail, but why this decoration? Is this a jail the place where Mythal put those who angered her? All those that had done wrong doings to other elves and asked Mythal for revenge, as the Altar of Mythal seems to suggest? Mythal as a dragon seems to represent her aggressive, furious aspect, while her humanoid form her just aspect. This would explain why we see her humanoid form inside her Temple, a place of Justice; while the dragon form is repeated all around her Altar, a place where petitioners ask for revenge, or outside her Temple, to defend it]. Finding this dragon statue here, beside the eluvian, could represent a message to intimidate the prisoners before entering the jail.

As we enter, the first thing we see is a pair of murals: the shifting halla or bound halla, and the black halla with the marked elves [more on this Nation Art: Elvhen]. The architecture of this place feels a very standard Ferelden castle.

There are several broken eluvians and a broken Howling Fen'Harel statue. There is some Dalish iconography too. Honestly, this place is a big mystery, and I can’t find a way to wrap most of the elements in a more or less coherent interpretation.

The cells are filled with many skeletons, showing that there was an overpopulation of prisoners in these cells. On the ground, there is a Golden Halla and on the wall, a part of an icon that, I suspect, it’s a reuse of an asset. 

The original icon represented the outlaw party in the Hinterlands, but by the way it’s shown in the wall, seems to be focused on “squeezing a snake”, which escapes my interpretation, since this is ancient elvhenan time... it cannot be a representation of Tevinter: there were no humans in the world yet.

On the other side of the corridor we find another Dragon Mythal statue, more cells, and more broken eluvian. Clearly this cell was connected to a lot of places given the amount of eluvians it once had. 

The painting of a golden halla aims to where we find 2 destroyed eluvians. Maybe an indication to the Forgotten Sanctuary? Hard to know.

Close to the Golden Halla, we find a Crumpled Page. Again, we are left with almost no information. 

The language of the note is unknown to us, which seems alarmingly strange, specially for an inquisitor who drank from the Well of Sorrows. So maybe this is not Elven in any way, but an ancient language of another race?

Since the note humiliates the jailer [making him farting and crossed-eyed], it must have been written by a prisoner. So, if we cannot understand the language, this implies that some of these prisoners were not elves. 

This only brings a curious implication: during the elvhenan empire, the only other race that existed, so far we were told via codices, was the dwarves as servants of titans. So, the further we can conclude in this place is that some dwarves may have been taken prisoners in here. Certainly, the vulgarity of the note seems to fit more a dwarf than an elf, if the ancient versions of these races still keep some cultural aspects of the modern ones. 

When we open the chest at the end of the corridor, some Greater Terror demons appear; probably the main demons fed by these prisoners. After defeating them we can have access to another item of  The Taken Shape set and the completion of the codex explained already in that post. 

In general, I feel completely lost in this space. We can’t grasp what this jail was about, and there is no material or evidence to work on. Some elvhen were jailed here, since we see the elvhen paintings that may suggest elvhes trapped for experimentation or branding [the black halla with vallaslin elves inside her, and the shifting halla]. But there is also a very unrelated painting of the outlaws [the squeezed snake], and the note that gives us the certainty that some prisoners were not elvhen because their language is something that the Well of Sorrow can’t translate. Maybe these prisoners were related to this strange squeezed snake. Maybe they were dwarves, since it’s the only other humanoid race that  we know existed during the elvhenan kingdom. And all this place is decorated with the intimidating form of Mythal as a dragon. This is very, very mysterious.

[gaysparkler]

Ara Ma'Athlan Vhenas

Yes okay it's my turn to post Solavellan. I'm late to the party but it was going to happen eventually... Read on AO3 Title from the lullaby "Mir Da'Len Somniar" Nialen Lavellan is non-binary and uses she/they interchangeably!

They must have been at this for well over an hour at that point, long enough for the sun to begin its descent and dip into the horizon. Nialen had enough physical strength and energy to keep running after that damned halla in rocky terrain all day, but she wasn’t sure about her companions—notably, Dorian had complained a few times already about rocks in his boots and flies refusing to leave him alone. Nialen only had eyes for the golden fur ahead of them.

“Why don’t we just kill it?” Iron Bull whispered during a short break for everyone to catch their breaths a moment.

“Hanal'ghilan is sacred,” Nialen hissed back before stretching a bit and resuming their jog. “You can go back to camp if you wish.”

“Oh, thank the Maker,” Dorian sighed. “Be careful, and all that.”

Iron Bull chose to follow him, but Solas remained with her, and her heart beat faster, not just because of their running—which if they were not currently doing, Nialen would have reached for his hand. In any other circumstance, this would have been quite a romantic affair, but as it was, she was growing somewhat frustrated and tired, and though they did enjoy Solas’ company, it would have been more enjoyable if they hadn’t spent a ridiculous amount of time chasing a stubborn halla who refused to be herded. Still, Solas kept up, and did not complain.

“I thought you were supposed to be good at this,” Solas’ voice appeared right by their ear, warm and teasing. Nialen could practically hear its accompanying smile.

“I’m a hunter,” she said as she brushed away a lock of hair that escaped from her braid. She could feel Solas’ eyes on her, following the movement of her hand.

“Is this not like a hunt?”

They turned their head to glare at him, and there was that wicked and lovely smile, the one she always looked at a little too long, this time enough to lose track of Hanal'ghilan—again. She swore under her breath and picked up the pace and followed its tracks until she could see it once more, its fur almost glowing under the setting sun. Over the tall rocks was the orange and red sails of the aravels. Just some more gentle coaxing, and—

“I can track, which I have done, since we found what we were looking for. I never said I could shepherd. There’s a reason I wear Andruil’s vallaslin and not Ghilan’nain’s.”

For a second, a deep sadness veiled Solas’ eyes, but it was gone before they could reach for him, or ask about it, or anything at all. It was around the same time that they finally reached the Dalish camp, Hanal'ghilan well ahead of them, already settling with the clan’s herd. Nialen took Solas’ hand, now that she could. It seemed to surprise him for a second, but again, that look quickly vanished from his features. Nialen deliberately bumped into his shoulder, which he did as well, keeping their fingers intertwined.

“Ma serannas,” she said. “For staying.”

His smile was kind, but the sadness was not fully out of his eyes. Perhaps it would never truly leave. Nialen could only tighten their grip on his hand, for now.

“Of course, Vhenan.”

There was that word again, from his mouth, setting her heart ablaze, and it still felt so surreal to her. She leaned closer, hoping for a kiss, and he obliged, dipping his head down to press his lips to hers. When they parted, Nialen noticed that Solas’ eyes lingered on her vallaslin. On their walk back to camp, they couldn’t help to think of Solas’ lack of one, despite his knowledge of their culture—

“You have done a lot of good today,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers. “Helping them.”

“I couldn’t—” they stammered. “It hurt when Keeper Hawen said he couldn’t trust me. Like I wanted this title. The shems decided I was their god’s chosen.”

Solas wrapped his arms around them. “These names are never kind.”

“No.” Nialen tucked their head under Solas’ chin. “I was happy to do this. Even herding Hanal'ghilan, annoying as it was. It felt like I was back home.”

Solas hummed in her hair and rubbed her back in their embrace. His hands were cold.

“You must be tired,” Solas gently led her the rest of the way to their camp. “Come, I will help you with your braids.”

Nialen followed Solas to their tent, which recently had become shared. With a quick flick of his hand, the small lantern in the corner flickered alight. After shedding their armour and weapons, they sat cross-legged together on their bedrolls, Nialen’s back to Solas, who deftly began to unravel her tightly braided hair—a ritual they both came to relish. Solas’ cold fingers were a balm against Nialen’s scalp as he meticulously untangled the curls at their root before separating them in strands and re-braiding them in a simpler fashion for sleep. Nialen had only shown him once, but he seemed to remember every detail of the routine perfectly.

Now done, Solas ran his hands down Nialen’s back, settled them at their waist, and leaned forward to hook his chin on their shoulder. Nialen reacted in kind by pressing her cheek against his.

“Thank you, Vhenan,” she said quietly, as to not disturb the peace in their tent, purposefully using the name Solas had given her—not all were kind, but this one was. Solas slid his arms around their midsection and pressed himself close. Outside, crickets chirped their tune, the Inquisition field agents on their watch paced and whispered stories of their day to each other, and a not-so trained ear could pick up the Iron Bull’s snoring.

“Sleep, then?” Solas asked, as quiet as them, his voice low in their ear.

Nialen just hummed against him. For a moment, in the dim light of the tent, surrounded by nature, it was like they were home again.

[hoboblaidd]

@fatesown liked for a starter - Dhavihal

Solas rested against one of the many bare boulders littering the Exalted Plains. He watched her careful approach to the Golden Halla with a mix of amusement and frustration. A breach in the sky, a magister wielding the power of a "god" - his power - and the only one who could end the onslaught was trying to herd a deer.

He removed his pack, grateful for the relief of its weight from his shoulders. He dug into its somewhat organized compartments and removed a bit of bread. This endeavor, futile as he believed it to be, would likely take some time. He let his gaze wander to the imposing stone carving of the Wolf atop a distant mountain. This land had been so different once, but echoes of its past could still be felt in the stone, the river, and the remnants of trees not scorched by the Orlesian civil war.

"You have a way with the beasts," called Solas, even as the Hanal'ghilan worried before Dhavihal, torn between its instinct to flee and her calming guidance. "Perhaps you may even corral her by sundown." It is both jest and a sigh. Stolen moments of mundane joy were a thing to be treasured, but there were rifts abundant in the Plains that had once belonged to his People, and far bigger problems to solve than the care of one halla.

[star--nymph]

don't make her go home please she's so happy she's finally so so happy don't DO thiS to her

THE INQUISITION DOESN'T NEED HER JUST LET HER STAY HERE

[thewardenisonthecase]

Honestly, where the fuck was Davrin when we needed him most - hearding the golden halla.

[wolvenhour]

when you learn that your dalish inquisitor, the first of her clan and wearing ghilan'nain's vallaslin, has never heard of the golden halla .. ..... ......

[ndostairlyrium]

You know what let's add one more. *Launches a lemon cake her way, Aisling runs after it*

I can picture Aisling being fascinated by Ankhs' views on the natural cycle and so on. She was never so close to Falon'Din, but she likes to listen to people being passionate about things. So, she'll ask Ankh about everything and will probably spend the night listening to this and that. She will contribute by trying to identify bones, as a Healer she knows some things about humanoid bones, and will be head over heels over doing some comparative anatomy (will totally insert one too many anectodes on horses and hallas)

Spending the night? You mean the week, because she'd attach herself to that interest like a suckerfish on a shark. And she'd totally borrow an ear for the horse talk, even two! Something a friend is passionate about? Let us go pet the drakolisk and learn how to care for them properly!

And the fact she could give an identity to some of her guests??? Aisling has unlocked a #1 fan

Solas is already at the city hall changing his citizenship

[jackals-ships]

also i was tangentially thinking and remembering the dalish in the exalted plains and i KNOW jackal is trying not to be weird and stare too hard at their halla and they Are failing they do NOT know if it's rude to ask if they can pet or not but they look so softe-

[thinkbolt]

Christmas Visitor (Hallas & Batchelor, 1962)

[christinabindon]

Soooo...a few weeks ago I commissioned a cameo from Gareth David Lloyd (Solas). I finally made a silly video out of it :) All art by me! {im not good at making videos haha} 100% self-indulgent for sure 😂 ________________

Var lath na mir hanal’ghilan.

The elven words at the end would roughly translate to “Our love is/was my guide” Hanal’ghilan when capitalized is also the term for the golden halla that appears in times of need to the Dalish as a pathfinder. 

DONT SPOIL ANYTHING VEILGUARD IN THE COMMENTS/REBLOGS!!

[lairofdragonagelore]

The Crossroads [DLC Trespasser]: Elven Mountain Ruins ,  Forgotten Sanctuary

In the time of Elvhenan, this valley was a sanctuary created by Fen'Harel to give shelter to elven slaves. He rejected the divine mantle himself and taught the refugees the truth about the Evanuris in the surrounding towers. In the Forgotten Sanctuary, Fen'Harel removed the vallaslin, giving the now free slaves the chance to join his army in order to fight back against the pretender gods.

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Before entering the Forgotten Sanctuary, we need to activate the bridge by replacing the broken Howling Fen'Harel statue. The altar where the statue lays is mounted on a Golden Ring. It is made of one of those cylindrical stones with ancient elvish on it that we have found in the entrance of the Temple of Myhtal Part 3 and in Exalted Plains: the Dead Hand. The figure of Fen'Harel rests on an elvhen tile which is inside another Golden Ring.

The bridge has 3 eluvians all protected by a pair of Howling Fen'Harel statue. The central one, aligned with the bridge, heads to the vine-covered tower. At the sides of the bridge there are two more eluvians: one broken, which probably headed to the Silent Tower, and the other which gives us access to the Smoking tower.

The bridge is protected by bound spirits that defend the place of intruders. We learnt from the qunari reports we read along the exploration that they were awaken by Solas. 

Once we have the Howling Fen'Harel statue from the Silent Tower, and place it on the altar at the bridge, the stone cylinder will sink into the bridge and leave a symbol that we saw already accompanied by two more circles in Emerald Graves: Din'an Hanin:

A golden ring inside another golden ring. I discussed in Nation Art: Elvhen, that the golden ring may be a representation of the power and of the elven orb, and therefore, related to the ability of creating pocket dimensions like this one.

Curiously, the isle has several Hallas around the sanctuary and one of them is a Golden Halla. I'm not sure if this is a way to tell us "this is the golden halla you have to follow to avoid the bad times". A halla that leads us to the Forgotten Sanctuary, where the vallaslin will be removed. The presence of it is not by chance, that’s for sure. We need to remember that the first painting we see when entering to the Elven Mountain Ruins is a golden halla inside the vine-covered tower. To find one in the Forgotten Sanctuary where the vallaslin is removed is saying “this is where the painting comes into reality”. 

The design of the sanctuary

From the outside is imposing, and its access is a bit tricky. You need to enter first to the vine-covered Tower, which is related to Dirthamen in an explicit way thanks to the presence of his mosaic. The game has hinted several times that Dirthamen has a knowledge related to the orbs, mirrors, and the golden rings [Read The Lost Temple of Dirthamen: Part 1] and he is always related to secrets. All these elements seem to converge in this place that the Forgotten Sanctuary represents. 

The sanctuary is decorated with banners that seem to be “elvhen”, which relationship with the Dalish version is pretty obvious. It’s easy to see that the Dalish took the Elvhen banner as foundation and added extra details that almost seem to be Orlesians [probably a synthesis caused by the coexistence between humans [Orlesians] and Dalish during the time of the Dales, even though it had its frictions]. 

The Forgotten Sanctuary displays externally all the usual elvhen patterns and typical details of the elvhen architecture.

Interior

The inside shows a lot of details and art in its architecture that matches Mythal's temple in beauty and almost in size as well.  The walls are decorated with golden elvhen patterns, and the ceiling is the typical elvhen one made with emerald green pieces of mosaics and golden decorations.

The main corridor displays this unique mosaic that usually is presented in a central part of elvhen chambers in the others temples we visited. Here, it repeats itself along the corridor, following a path, until reaching to an Elven Tree Statue.

Beside this corridor, the space is filled with beds used by the Qunari, I assume. But I think most of them are ancient beds used by the ancient refugees. Why do I think so? because the spiderweb around them is thick, it means that these beds have not been used for ages. There are also Dalish iconography  and boxes with the symbol of the Dalish that surprised me. Does this mean that the ancient refugee were Dalish? Or the Dalish were always the slaved-elves? We only saw three Elvhen so far: Solas, who never had Vallaslin in-game, and Abelas and Felassan, both of them wore the Mythal Vallaslin, which makes them a bit different to slaves, apparently. Servants of Mythal seemed to have been elvhen with a strong sense of duty and service, and had to earn the “privilege” of becoming servants of Mythal [Abelas’ words], unlike the other Evanuris, who forced other elvhens into servitude [so far the game has hinted to us, nothing of this has strong evidence, sadly]. But certainly, the presence of Dalish objects in this Ruin is more shocking and revealing than in any other ruin we visited [for example, the lost temple of Dirthamen, which we knew that had been explored before by different parties over the ages, Dalish included]. This place, however, has been locked since the time of the end of the Evanuris until now. 

The main corridor leads us to the Elven Tree Statue. Its base is a cube of concrete decorated in each side. On top of it there are four Howling Fen'Harel statue, positioned in a way that suggest they are protecting the tree. One of the sides of the base-cube has a mosaic of Fen'Harel.

In this space there are real plants growing at the feet of this tree statue. The place in which this tree is placed means a lot. It's the first thing you see when entering the sanctuary, guarded by four Howling Fen'Harel statue. It's an element of great importance and honour. For the Dalish the tree has always meant “The People”, but as you may think, I prefer to avoid taking as a foundation anything based on Dalish tales. Even though the meaning of the tree is not clear, I think it keeps being related to a source of the power which allowed the creation of a place like this valley.

Once we pass this tree, we enter to a very, veeeery curious part of the temple as the corridor continues.  At the sides, we find a small chapel for four Evanuris [if we consider Fen’Harel as one of them].

This is one of the things that confuses me the most. Why a temple called The Forgotten Sanctuary, dedicated to remove the Vallaslin and free the slaves, would have a chapel of some Evanuris that slaved these people? Specially if we take into consideration that one of them is Falon'Din [here is where I eat my words about trying not to relate the symbols in this Valley with any evanuris. It’s impossible to do it when you have the damned mosaic of the Evanuris here, in the main, central sanctuary]

Is it meant to give them a place of transition between their faith in those gods and the truth that Fen'Harel shared with them? Seems pretty odd. Refugees reaching this place may have been already sick of the Evanuris.  Why this space is here, just before the chamber where the Vallaslin will be removed? I have so many questions to the devs in this point. 

At the entrance of these chapels we find a pair of elven funerary urns where we can see some faded-out letters.

On the left side of the corridor, we find this configuration of Evanuris: Dirtamen, Myhtal, Fen'Harel, Falon'Din and Dirthamen again.

On the right, we find the configuration of the mosaics to be a mirror of the left side: Dirtamen, Falon'Din, Fen'Harel, Myhtal, and Dirthamen.

In both walls, the first and the last one is Dirthamen. It’s like telling us “I’m the beginning and the end”. I always felt that Dirthamen may have had a good relationship with Fen'Harel, simply because they both share a lot of common aspects related to spirits of Wisdom: secrets, knowledge, understanding. We know Solas as a character; his profile fits so well all what we know about Dirthamen. We also find Dirthamen’s potential humanoid statue in the Fade of Flemeth-Part 2, bleeding and with a sword on his back, as a symbol of betrayal. So, in general, the presence of Dirthamen with Mythal and Fen'Harel doesn't seem strange to me even though there is no explicit evidence telling us how their relationship was. Strange, however, it is the presence of Falon'Din.

I suppose that since Dirthamen and Falon'Din are unable to be separated one another, Falon'Din is basically part of the package if you are friend with Dirthamen. Still it's curious that Fen'Harel decided to make a explicit room for him in this temple, specially considering how insane he was according to Solas’ words in the Temple of Mythal. 

Another option to explain this is that, maybe, Falon’Din was friendly in the beginning, but godhood changed him, turning him into a creature of extreme vanity. This idea is slightly justified by Solas’ last conversation before facing Corypheus, where he explains with a bitter tone that a selfless person can resist the lure of power, but a group can never do it [referring to what the Inquisitor will do with the power of the Well of Sorrows]. 

If he is speaking from personal experience, from the time of Evanuris, this could explain an initial friendship with Falon’Din until power corrupted him. Still, even in this case, it’s strange for Fen’Harel to put him in this temple. Is it not by the time he created this space that he was trying to free the servants of the Evanuris? Falon’Din, present in this mural, means that he was already considered one, he was already a god, therefore, he was already committing his abuses of power. 

Honestly, these murals, and in particular the presence of Falon’Din in this place, is one of the biggest mysteries of this Sanctuary in my opinion. 

[hollytree33]

Okay okay now that I’m done with these I wanted to post them all together so you can see how the bottom two sort of mirror the top two! I’ve been so excited to finish these so I could show y’all the full picture.

If you’re seeing these for the first time they are The Hanged Man, The Chariot, The High Priestess, and Judgement!

For anyone interested, the original sketches are under the cut!

The sketch for the first one is not included because I did that before I started planning anything.

As you can see they changed quite a bit as I worked on them! The high priestess was originally the two of swords and judgement had a bunch of people that I ended up abandoning.

Bonus: my unfinished procrastination drawing of Shiv with her hart and the golden halla

[maliro-t]

The highlight of Veilguard for me is the relationship between Solas and Rook- and I don't know how to write about this on the internet without being acutely aware of other peoples' criticisms (such as there not being enough of it)- so I'll just say up top that I'm not actually intending this as a refutation of any of those. I just want to talk about my experience with the game and why I like it so much, which will probably make obvious where I disagree with some reoccurring critiques I've seen. *

The thing about Solas in this game is that he plays the role of the trickster perfectly. As much as Fen'Harel is a myth or a persona, and the stories we know of him invented or twisted, his role in Veilguard feels like it could slot in so, so easily with the myths, and in many ways directly parallels them. He is sinister and noble, monstrous and sympathetic, ruthless and compassionate, all at once. He spends the game trapped and humbled but can be almost gleefully condescending at times. He conflates outsmarting an enemy with being right, even as he plays the long-suffering martyr, tortured by countless mistakes. He falls easily into the role of advisor but is quick to note your foolishness. To sneer and declare the problem yours and yet still impose upon you an appraisal of your conduct.

But more than any of that, for most of the game, he's...passive. Dormant. He seems to make no moves, other than as a glorified consultant, despite starting as the main threat.

In Blood of Arlathan, when he finally rears his head again as major a player on the board, it's with a gallant offer of help. As an ally. He is exactly what you need, right when you need it, and you don't even have to ask him to be. And- because you don't have constant access to him, you maybe haven't even considered him an option!

He feels extremely intentionally sparing to me before this in service of a) making you think you're the one with power over him and b) causing you to forget he might contribute at all, so that when he finally does, it seems wholly benevolent. It comes in a moment where your goals are exactly aligned, and indisputably noble.

It's a waiting game. A classic of his, harkening back to stories we've heard time and again about Fen'harel and traps.

As Felassan tells it in the Masked Empire:

Fen'Harel was captured by the hunting goddess, Andruil. He had angered her by hunting the halla without her blessing, and she tied him to a tree and declared that he would have to serve in her bed for a year and a day to pay her back. But as she made camp that night, the dark god Anaris found them, and Anaris swore that he would kill Fen'Harel for crimes against the Forgotten Ones. Andruil and Anaris decided that they would duel for the right to claim Fen'Harel. He called out to Anaris during the fight and told him of a flaw in Andruil's armor just above the hip, and Anaris stabbed Andruil in the side, and she fell. Then Fen'Harel told Anaris that he owed the Dread Wolf for the victory and ought to get his freedom. Anaris was so affronted by Fen'Harel's audacity that he turned and shouted insults at the prisoner, and so he did not see Andruil, injured but alive, rise behind him and attack with her great bow. Anaris fell with a golden arrow in his back, badly injured, and while both gods slumbered to heal their wounds, Fen'Harel chewed through his ropes and escaped.

He goads his enemies into fighting each other for his benefit. Anaris, who had hunted him, succeeds with Fen'Harel's advice, exploiting a weakness he could only see with his aid. In turn, Anaris himself is left exposed. The victory goes to Fen'Harel, who has now dispatched two enemies at once and cleverly won his freedom.

He who was both Creator and Forgotten One. Who could walk amongst both as kin, and who in the end turned his back on them all.

Another tale:

The god Fen'Harel was asked by a village to kill a great beast. He came to the beast at dawn, and saw its strength, and knew it would slay him if he fought it. So instead, he shot an arrow up into the sky. The villagers asked Fen'Harel how he would save them, and he said to them, 'When did I say that I would save you?' And he left, and the great beast came into the village that night and killed the warriors, and the women, and the elders. It came to the children and opened its great maw, but then the arrow that Fen'Harel had loosed fell from the sky into the great beast's mouth, and killed it. The children of the village wept for their parents and elders, but still they made an offering to Fen'Harel of thanks, for he had done what the villagers had asked. He had killed the beast, with his cunning, and a slow arrow that the beast never noticed.

Felassan is everywhere in the Crossroads, in memories, in regrets, in notes that speak to a time you can barely fathom and traces of a friendship that is never once brought up by Solas directly (to my knowledge at least). I think Felassan serves a lot of purposes; he's a window into history, into Solas' mind and ideals, someone who challenges moments of ruthlessness but is loyal, an advisor who keeps Solas grounded even as he pushes him to become something larger than he is, a lingering notion of a loss that you can never really see the full scale of, and so on. And I think, too, that he's written carefully to be a meaningful presence from the rebellion without explicitly spoiling what eventually happens to him, which I wouldn't be surprised if was a legit consideration made for people who might go back and read the Masked Empire after dav lol- in the same way that Trespasser only really spoils the book if you already know what happens.

But for me, every note signed with his name is almost a tongue-in-cheek warning about what's to come. Felassan. A slow arrow, fired apparently mockingly into the sky, only to strike true when it's least expected. A solution executed with neither kindness nor explanation, serving first and foremost the interests of the one who fired it. Felassan's presence in the game ever so slightly encodes a reminder of who you're actually dealing with and what his core tenants are, whether as an ally or an adversary. You only know if you know, but it doesn't seem an accident to me that this reoccurring name of a general who shaped himself in honor of the Dread Wolf's unorthodox cleverness is so key to these traces of Fen'Harel's past, despite, again, never directly being discussed.

Anyways, to Rook. First, I gotta give a shoutout to Bryony Corrigan, whose voice I used for mine- she honestly made the game for me, especially in moments where I felt unsure of it. I love Rook, I love how they're written, and I love how they're performed. While a complete blank slate protagonist can be really fun, I find putting myself as a player in conversation with limitations given by the game really fun and interesting, and often surprising! And I do feel there's still plenty of flexibility.

My perspective on the relationship between Rook and Solas in Veilguard is specific to how I played of course, and I haven't seen other versions of their dynamic at this point to compare so I can't speak to them. But my experience was as such:

I didn't come into the game wanting to intentionally antagonize him. If he rose at me, I rose at him- and those moments of tension were really, really fun. But I tried to accept what he gave me with a fairly open mind. Skepticism, sure, but also the knowledge that ultimately, we both wanted Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain gone, and he knew them better than I did.

It was really gratifying, then, to see our rocky partnership evolve over time into what seemed like a genuine respect. But it didn't really feel straightforward to me either. For example, the conversation before Weisshaupt held a lot of weight for me: listening to him tell that chilling tale about undermining an enemy with persistent laughter and finding that 'Do whatever it takes to remove those who oppose you' was something we came out aligned on was.... There was an element of foreboding to that. Like, I had found myself actively trying to impress him here! And feeling good when it seemed like I had, but uneasy about how I had done it, even when I agreed with what I'd said.

And of course, after that comes Arlathan. Solas' big hero moment. This is the point in the game where our alliance finally felt comfortable to me. The conversation in the fade after was the first time that it really seemed like we were on even ground. And the game- not just Solas- told me here outright that I had earned his respect! After that, I didn't consider betrayal a possibility for a moment. Honestly, I barely even considered him an antagonist at all, because he had become a partner instead! I was expecting something clever down the line, but I wasn't worried about it hurting me. Our disagreements had been set aside, and the goal of his that I had initially opposed had been so thoroughly usurped I had forgotten that he was even pursuing it. And yes, that's perhaps naivety on my part, but I was so distracted by that not at all being the main plot that I forgot that it actually still was. Which is the whole point, right? He waits until your head is turned the other way to strike.

All this to say, my reaction when you kill Ghilan'nain and Solas uses the instability of the Veil to force you into his prison went beyond shock and confusion. It wasn't until well into his villain monologue that I was able to accept that he had betrayed me at all- having been thus far trying desperately to convince myself that the sequence I was seeing was Elgar'nan playing mind games in retaliation, and not actually Solas.

That prison moment is his Slow Arrow. You are Anaris to Elgar'nan's Andruil, the dagger the chink in her armor, and Ghilan'nain's death the golden arrow striking you in the back.

The wolf chews its leg off to escape the trap.

And I should say, I was coming at this all from the meta perspective of someone who loves Solas and empathizes with him and has never seen him as irredeemable or evil- and I, the player, who believed that all game and is ultimately satisfied with the resolution I got- felt hoodwinked as fuck in this moment lmao!!

There's a line in the prison that Varric has about it being easier for Solas to play the villain when he knows he's causing harm- so I do think he plays up his sinisterness here on purpose. But it's such a slap in the face coming straight off of "You have earned the respect of the Dread Wolf." A true and profound betrayal, at least for me.

And it doesn't stop there! His trickster maneuvers and half-truths aren't done until the credits roll. I love that when you meet again, he is nothing but apologies. He makes every concession- that Varric was a good man, that every victory in this fight has been yours, that he needs you and not the other way around, that he was wrong and made mistakes and betrayed people who never deserved it. And of course, we know from experience at this point that this won't stop him from doing it again anyways. But he never holds back from placing the blame on himself. Agreeing with you. Telling you you're right, and that Elgar'nan must be stopped. He only ever says things that are true. Things that are aligned with your point of view.

"[The veil] will never come down by my hand." Well, yes. Because it will fall on its own when Elgar'nan is dead. You won't hardly have to do anything at that point, Solas, will you?

It doesn't matter if Rook isn't falling for it, because if they don't accept his partnership, they lose! That's it! It's the same as it was at the start, but with the added sting of knowing it probably won't work out in your favor this time.

I remember before launch John Epler saying that Solas sees himself in Rook, which really echoes throughout the whole game for me. There are some ways you could say Solas seems opposite to Rook- and of course this can wax and wane depending on roleplaying choices, but the central conceit of Rook as Varric's recruit is that they are a specialist in being willing to act. And on the surface at least, that's kind of counter to Solas' Slow Arrow, right? Blunt force versus delayed gratification. But not entirely! Because every backstory we have for Rook revolves around a kind of heroism that is unorthodox enough to have left you ultimately punished for it. Like yeah, yeah, you saved some lives.... The optics were kinda bad though, so maybe you could go on a sabbatical for a while?

Rook is, from the start, an unconventional and unsung hero, admonished by some for ruffling feathers that they shouldn't have in pursuit of a noble goal. Not unlike Fen'Harel.

I find, too, that there's kind of a nesting doll of parallels around Rook and Solas as foils that the whole story hinges on:

We see Solas, his regrets plastered on every wall, each of them tied to Mythal. At every turn he seems to warn her that this is not the right path, but he follows her down it anyways, until he is left with nothing but an overwhelming need to fix what they have broken.

We see Felassan, who still wears Mythal's vallaslin on his face, challenging Solas' judgement and methods, but still standing by him through the rebellion, after the Veil, for however many thousands of years they slept. Ultimately, in the Masked Empire, the thing that makes him falter is his admiration for someone else's pursuit of freedom. His admiration for Briala.

"I suspect you'll hate this, but she reminds me of-"

Solas is Rook. Solas is Briala. Upstarts, flawed defenders, people who are made into leaders because of their willingness to fight for something. Who see injustice and cannot rest.

Solas is Felassan, the devoted general. One who pushes against his orders but cannot deny them. Someone who loves the cause, but more than that is dedicated to the person who champions it. A voice of reason who, in the end, turns away.

Solas is Mythal, a pragmatic leader, responsible for uncountable deaths. Someone who has relied on partners and power structures that have led her down a dark path, partners whose mistakes in their pursuit of power have become her own. Partners who in the end betray her.

Solas is trapped in his regrets because they are not all his. He struggles with having been failed and with how he has failed others, and in his mind the two become conflated. He carries these contradictory roles on his back- perpetrator and victim, betrayer and betrayed- and cannot see how to overcome them. He is ultimately freed by Mythal's absolution because the foremost factor in his crusade is not belief but guilt.

The ends have to justify the means, because there is no other way he can live with himself. And at every step, he is trying to redeem Mythal as much as he is trying to redeem himself.

He did not want a body, but she asked him to come. He wanted to give wisdom, not orders. I will always follow where you go.

He left a scar when he burned her off his face.

It was all for her. It was always for her.

Solas' duplicity is unending, but so is his devotion. And there is such an earnestness to a Rook, always betrayed, that sees and empathizes with that and uses it to free him.

* I will say that during the game I was definitely wishing you could show your hand to him a little more and press him about his memories prior to the endgame (and separate from this I have quibbles with the impact of some of those memory reveals- like wrt the delivery just not feeling as weighty as I would like. The payoff is absolutely still there in the end, it just felt to me like they were too nonchalantly getting a ton of info out that had to be established moving forward, despite these being like earthshattering reveals that people have Correctly (!!!!) theorized about for up to 15 years). That being said, in retrospect it would have lessened the impact of the finale to have pressed Solas about, for example, his relationship to Mythal prior to absolutely pulling the rug out from under him with it at the 11th hour. And additionally, it's a structural nightmare because you can uncover the memories at almost any point in the story, and you don't have constant access to Solas to chat with him about them. Which you shouldn't imo, in service to the story being told!! But it's also true that early on I found scenes with Solas super gripping, and scenes with my team often...not. And that was initially disheartening, but developed positively over time on all fronts once the game didn't have to worry about setting things up. So, I did wish for more here at first, but I've revised my opinion now that I can see the whole arc.

[vaguely-concerned]

viago at the end of sea of blood breaking out his stern teacher voice and being like 'no!!! we don't have the time to go off looking for revenge against zara right now we have real important things to focus on we need to think this through before we --' getting broken off by teia going 'FUCK that I'm tired of roses and horny for revenge. we're killing this bitch. slit her throat from me when you find her lucanis'. and viago immediately, visibly, wordlessly because no words are needed, relenting like 'I'm not going to argue with a girl with big halla-golden eyes. whatever you say beautiful'. (with teia like :> about it through the grief and rage. yes. whatever she says. teia can do whatever she wants forever she has a permit (she made it herself) but it's nice of you to notice.) this is what they're like when they're technically on a break. unspeakable stuff. they are, in fact, everything in the whole world to me

[thedinanshiral]

Inside you there are two wolves..

I recently made a tweet simply sharing a fraction of my thoughts on the Solavellan motif of wolf&halla. I decided to expand on it here.

I never adhered to the whole wolf/halla Solavellan thing. That dynamic is simply not for me, not with them. I think Solas is more likely to fall for an equal; even if Lavellan technically isn't, she's definitely the closest he's met in a thousand years. She's the white wolf [in his romanced tarot card] Adding to this, he respects her opinion and counsel, she inadvertently may help him make up his mind about what he'll do next (woops) aka giving him purpose, and she can also vow to save him from himself. She's both his guide and guardian. This is his romanced card for a reason.

I can understand why many people may like to frame Solavellan in the wolf&halla motif. He's an ancient elvhen, she's literally thousands of years younger than him. He's wise beyond her imagination and she knows by comparison basically nothing of their own history. He's the deciever and she's the deceived. The predator/prey dynamic is right there, at first.

Solas is a proud man, one may argue even arrogant, but he's also a serious man, focused, disciplined, he wouldn't fall for just anyone, he wouldn't open his heart to someone he may consider lesser even in the slightest. While he refused to acknowledge present elves as people and maybe thought of them as little else than a bad dream he had to wake up from at any cost, Lavellan earned his trust, his respect and admiration, through her actions, her own "indomitable focus", and by showing him the respect and admiration other Dalish denied him on sight. She gave him hope for the future of his people and that must have been priceless, she literally changed his whole world.

At that point there was no hunting, no preying, no seeing Lavellan as another chesspiece on the board, even if she couldn't be allowed to be anything else. She defied all his preconceptions and rendered him vulnerable. Their relationship is consensual, up to a certain point it ends when Lavellan says it ends, he doesn't pursue further if rejected. Actually, it's Lavellan who pursues him most of the time, why isn't Solas the halla here? He's the one being chased!

Lavellan is a wolf too, the white wolf.

The Exalted Plains has shrines to Fen'harel, one in particular is flanked by two wolf figures, one white and the other black. His dual nature is always present; in Dalish lore he's despised as the betrayer but also revered and his favour still sought after. As the Dreadwolf he was both friend and enemy to the people, depending on which side they were on. He's prideful but can also be crushingly selfless.

I really like this shrine because of these statues

The white and black wolves also appear in his tarot cards.

When he falls for Lavellan, he's locked in for good; even as he ends the relationship before even giving it a name, his card changes to his romanced one, and there's no going back. Lavellan can't undo it, he won't even though he's the one insisting their love can not be. But it is, and it is for life. Wolves mate for life. This immediately tells me Lavellan is also a wolf, and she's represented in his romanced card as the white one.

At the forefront, walking next to him, watching, guarding him. Colours are light, golden, the scene is calm, serene.

If he's never romanced then the other card of his give us a very different image:

His shadow becomes a giant black wolf that towers over him, right behind him, leaning forward almost as if about to engluf him, consume him. This is possibly a representation of his Dinan'shiral, and more clearly of his Dreadwolf aspect. He's set himself on a journey he can not stop and from which he can not return.

Interestingly enough there's an alternative version of this card that was discarded:

In it his head isn't covered by a hood, he carries no staff and there is no moon. The menacing wolf haunting him remains the same.

While the black wolf walks behind him, the white wolf walks beside him. He considers Lavellan his equal, even in all their differences. While the black wolf seems about to consume him, the white wolf is guarding him, staring at the viewer as if asying "Do not dare disturb his peace". He knows she'd do anything to protect him out of love even as he's decided to destroy himself out of love for his people (and tons upon tons of guilt).

Lavellan made him vulnerable in a way he had not foreseen and so he had no defenses against that love. I strongly believe only a romanced Lavellan can change his mind, at the very least make him doubt at the last moment. As much as he respects and appreciates a friend Inquisitor, it simply isnt' the same. Lavellan is to him a light so bright he had to force himself to look away lest he became blind and lost in it.

I remember people were puzzled at first, why if his romanced card is The Hierophant it had almost all elements of The Fool? There's two simple reasons i can think of. First of all, he's a fool in love. Falling in love with Lavellan is probably the stupidest thing he's done since he woke up, considering he's on a suicide mission to end her world. But that he did speaks of trust, opened up possibilities he hadn't imagined, Lavellan's innocence was contagious and powerful enough that he really had to struggle to turn away from her.

At the same time, the Hierophant is a teacher of tradition, which really had been his role all throughout Inquisition, and the last thing he does before cutting the romance was share more of that lost knowledge to Lavellan, the truth of the vallaslin.

Solas' romanced card is two cards combined referencing multiple aspects of their character and relationship, and we could also consider the Fool to be Lavellan, because the defining element in the card design that can make people wonder which card is it is the white wolf. She's the fool mortal that fell for a god, she's the Keeper who fell for Fen'harel, and she didn't know it until it was too late.

As for his final card, The Tower, it doesn't necessarily have to be so terrible. Much like Death, The Tower is about change. The end of the old to allow for the new, and changes can be positive or negative, they can be gentle or earth-shattering. In Solas' case we know he's aiming for the resurgence of the world he knew by destroying the one he inadvertently created when he put up the Veil, but this card may also symbolize the destruction of all his preconceptions and ideas, the realization that the world he knew was gone and another strange one he couldn't accept had taken its place, the symbolic death of a part of himself as he changed in his time with the Inquisition.

I imagine the white wolf represents his soul, in a way, the thing by which he may be redeemed. And that is Lavellan. No halla, but a wolf that's been tracking him for years, hunting him down to stop him because she and she alone has the power to do so. And he's been running away from her for as many years because he knows this even better than she does, he knows she's his last remaning weakness, the one that makes him vulnerable enough to break his resolve because in the end hers is stronger.

I really don't think he'd be capable of harming Lavellan, and if he does i feel it would drive him mad and cause him to lose whatever control he'd have left. He'd lose his light, his soul, his heart, leaving behind only the shadows. He chose to leave rather than take Lavellan out of the equation here and that tells me he can't bring himself to do it, it's too late now, he feels too much for her.

Now I'm extra curious and anxious to see what role the Inquisitor will play in The Veilguard, if they'll meet Solas again, what effect that would have on both of them.

And I hope neither tries to do something stupid..