#it’s not wrong or right

[loredrinker]

Seeing Solas Through the Eyes of Cole

Currently working on a project, trying to paint a picture of Solas through the dialogue said about and to him in both games - the good and the bad. I love analyzing dialogue, so this has been a fun project, even if a bit daunting at times. The last few days I've been focusing on Cole’s lines specifically, and it’s interesting to see how much sympathy and emotional depth we get through Cole.  

When we view Solas through the lens of spirits - beings of emotion - it's understandable why many players find Solas sympathetic. Cole especially is a powerful lens for this because of the nature of this character, he doesn’t recall facts - he feels what others feel. 

Cole's dialogue after All New, Faded for Her, paints, I think, the most vivid emotional picture of Solas.  

Cole: Bright and brilliant, he wanders the ways, walking unwaking, searching for wisdom...   Solas: I do not need you to do that, Cole.   Cole: Your friend wanted you to be happy, even though she knew you wouldn't be.   Solas: (Sighs.) Could you... if you would remember her, could you do it as I would?   Cole: He comes to me as though the Fade were just another wooded path to walk without a care in search of wisdom. We share the ancient mysteries, the feelings lost, forgotten dreams, unseen for ages, now beheld in wonder. In his own way, he knew wisdom, as no man or spirit had before.   Solas: Thank you. 

As a man now and as time has gone by, Solas’ memories have become clouded by shame and regret. He can’t trust himself to remember his friend as it deserves to be remembered - without distortion. 

So he turns to Cole, a being closer to that spiritual purity, and asks him to remember his friend as he would have. 

But I love what happens instead. 

Cole responds by sharing how the spirit remembers Solas. This is rare - a spirit’s insight on how they view Solas - a memory of him, untainted by the self-loathing Solas carries. Cole knows what Solas needs even if Solas doesn’t and I believe Cole knows that part of Solas’ hurt is that he’s grieving not just his friend, but the man/spirit he was.   

“In his own way, he knew wisdom, as no man or spirit had before.”  

This was likely a spirit who had known Solas throughout his entire existence - as both spirit and man. The way it describes him is in the present tense: “He comes to me...” tells me that Solas, even as a man, continued to visit this spirit in the Fade. So the spirit sees him not as something entirely changed. Solas may have taken a different form, but his nature - curious, seeking, attuned to the Fade - remains the same.

We don't know for sure, but this spirit likely witnessed his transformation from spirit to man, his part in the destruction of the Titans, his rebellion against the Evanuris, the death of Mythal, and the long path that led to the events of Inquisition. I wonder, how many times did he turn to this spirit when he’d lost his clarity, seeking the wisdom he once embodied? Would things have gone differently if this spirit was still alive in the events leading to, and of Veilguard? Outside of Mythal, it may be the only being we meet in the games who has seen the entirety of Solas.

This spirit understood that Solas was wounded. Of course it did - it was a spirit of Wisdom. And when we consider its final words to Solas alongside Cole’s later dialogue, we gain deeper insight into the pain he carries.

“I’m happy. I’m me again. You helped me. Now you must endure”. 

Solas helped it return to it's purpose before it passed, and in return, it asks him to do the same: to endure. Not just physically, but spiritually - to live without losing himself and hold on to who he truly is beneath all the darkness and regret. 

I think part of the pain Cole feels in Solas stems from Solas losing himself. The theme of longing to be seen runs throughout Inquisition and Veilguard - in the Memories of a Duet Codex, in Solas telling the Inquisitor, “Few in this world can see me…,” and in his confession to a hurt Inquisitor, “You saw more than most.” He even states it outright: “I was Solas first.” And Solas is being buried beneath centuries of war, shame, grief, and every name hurled at him as an insult and in hatred.

To me, this dialogue offers a rare window into who Solas is beneath the darkness, strangled by years of violence and making choices against his nature. His capacity for love, his longing for connection - it isn’t a lie. It’s the part of him that can endure, despite everything. If the atonement ending is chosen, we see the full expression of that endurance.

To feel compassion for someone isn’t to excuse their actions - but there is power in understanding the emotional root of those actions. And if we choose to see Solas through Cole’s eyes (and through the eyes of the Spirit of Wisdom) – well, maybe we’ll find that he’s not that kind of wolf.  

*Note - there are theories that this dialogue is referring to Mythal, not the Spirit of Wisdom. Regardless of what you believe, this dialogue still paints the same picture of Solas. If it is Mythal, it's even more interesting as despite all their shared pain and hurt of each other, she still wants him to find happiness.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[churroach]

Girlish whimsy indeed

[catmask]

hey guys when you say something is for the johto starters can you include me in that as well? the johto starters and tepig if it's not too much trouble thanks guys

[mummer]

not that i am against the concept of international trade nor do i think tariffs are based or whatever but what is interesting is seeing how much of the american reaction comes down to “but *i* dont want to work in a factory for pennies and *i* dont want my currency to be worthless and to have to pay one billion dollars for iphone” without even acknowledging your comfort depends on a global population who is forced to live under those exact conditions. right. like it or not, for the world to exist as it does, someone’s got to do it. someone’s got to mine the precious metals, someone’s got to forge the machine parts. someone’s got to ruin their body for slave wages, somewhere. the fact that you and i don’t is a result of winning a total genetic lottery and it is the exception not the norm and do what you want with that information but at least dont be callous

[artistic-cocoon]

Saw someone on twt say they wanted to see Percy drawn like Yusuf Dikec and I couldn't help myself

[sparrowlucero]

The greatest injustice ever faced is that I almost certainly started the still thriving "clown husbandry" tag on here, but any discussion about it (from a know your meme page to a youtube video with 500k views) says it's a joke of "unknown origin" or credited to this post, likely bouncing off of mine (which was actively circulating at the time with like 30k notes):

This is a tragedy for many reasons, most of all because it wasn't just an offhand joke but actually a direct response to some of the funniest online hate I ever got:

They're erasing the truest history of tumblr: its desperate need to seethe and argue over every obvious joke with more than 10 notes.

anyways here is the canonical pet clown. according to me

[hinamie]

mentor

[nothingbizzare]

You have a good heart

[duckysprouts]

if you were at your worst, if you’re a villain or a screwup or whatever, there is a goth man dressed as a giant bat who keeps coming after you, bothering you. he sabotages your journey of self destruction over and over. ur ready to give up but he won’t let you. you think, today he won’t come. today he will give up on me too. he never does.

[egophiliac]

I'm still processing 7-13, in the meantime have this super quick thing! of all the things that happened that I didn't expect, one of 'em certainly was a not insignificant subplot revolving around Silver unintentionally committing international mail fraud.

[limitedseries]

Severance— "Good News About Hell" (1.01) & "Chikhai Bardo" (2.07)

[buppkizz]

etiquette tip 🍷🍷

[fablivious1]

Erm hello

[c-is-for-circinate]

Came back wrong? How about came back right, except that the world you came back to is wrong. Came back just like waking up from a long nap only to find that the people who love you broke themselves into shards and bloody bargains to get you back.

There are new stains that nobody will explain, hidden beneath the rug in the upstairs hallway. Your mother's left eye is clouded and strange. The cat no longer goes near your brother. There's a sharp-edged shadow now, under your lover's smile.

Everybody says you must be remembering wrong, but your sense of smell is just as good as ever. The closet that used to smell like cedar and cinnamon smells like sulfur, now, and nobody will tell you why.

[xthe-moonletx]

“You mean, like a sudden rainstorm forces them together beneath a canopy

they look into each other’s eyes

and realize they were made for each other.”

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Here’s a revamp of a piece I drew about a year ago, now fully rendered and refreshed! It’s a spin-off of Pierre Aguste Cott’s The Storm that I thought fit the ineffables perfectly :)