#his notes in the lighthouse talking about making a “perfect reparation” stuck with me

[mixupmycota]

A lot of folks are, reasonably, using the term "redemption" to talk about the solas and mythal's essence ending. We're all super used to talking about "redemption arcs".

This is not, I think, the word to use in this case. Solas provides us one himself in the game. He is not looking for redemption - indeed, there is nothing he can ever do that would undo what he has done, what he actively chose to do at various points across Thedas's history. He is also, potentially, utterly committed to this act up until the last.

Solas doesn't need redemption. He needs to, and is is looking to, make reparation. Initially, for the harm he did in putting up the veil. His chosen path there is an act that would result in mass murder on a continental and theoretically global scale.

The ending in which he binds himself to the veil and sets out to soothe the titans is much closer to an actual reparation for the much deeper initial harm that he did: the mass tranquilization of those titans and the severing of the dreams of the dwarves, an act that has resulted in them almost being driven to extinction multiple times.

I really like that ending, because unlike his plan to unleash an apocalypse, it is actually an act of repair. It is taking responsibility for the damage he did, and rather than just feeling very sad about it or continuing to do fresh damage in the name of sunk cost, he sets out to for real do something about it. It is the most any single individual in these circumstances could do to address systemic harm they are responsible for.

It's also much less punitive. I really like that ending, because it provides potential to break a truly ancient cycle that has been making that man self-isolate more and more for an unfathomable amount of time, which also fed in to so many of his more fucked up choices.

It is a harrowing prospect for anyone to do alone, so the idea of the inquisitor going with him, while something I have personal misgivings about, is also something I think could potentially help him, even if their relationship did not remain romantic.

I think that ending is much more interesting when we stop thinking about it in terms of the typical associations for "redemption arcs", and instead think about it through a restorative and reparation focused lens!