#morrigan is first obviously

[crows-of-buckets]

Zevwarden friendship is so important to me... I love them so much

[cicide76536]

Wouldn't it be cool to have a bar with your friends like they have in those TV shows?

This was one of my art pieces for Dragon Age Create-a-Thon 2024 and I had so much fun making it!

[magilament]

morrigan dragonage was not only brought up in a way that will skew over someone's worldview but as it is known she had no frame of reference of save what she herself said she had observed from afar. it could be argued that her lack of empathy towards other people who like her desire bodily autonomy (ie zevran) or situations where the same question is brought up (ie caradin asking to destroy the anvil) comes not only because the whole 'survival of the fittest' rhetoric was the main ingredient in her personal torment nexus orchestrated by her mother but also for her to express empathy would mean separating herself from her mother in a way that would have morrigan take the first step where she admits she IS like her mother

[faejilly]

Finna Brosca

I have no excuse for this collection besides the fact I laughed so I'm sharing:

1: Dwarves are short and Alistair is tall 2: Finna is round and Morrigan is Too Skinny (Finna is absolutely going to get her So Much Food & So Many Blankets)

3 & 4: Idk, Sten's huh face as he looks down at the dwarf that just opened his cage for the heck of it after one (1) quick conversation (she never did talk to the boss-lady in the chantry. because chantries are weird and she doesn't get it.)

5: They are both short and covered in blood and delighted with each other's existence: BFFs 5evar

[thedragonagelesbian]

God i need to start keeping track of scenes i want to rewrite/elaborate on.............

[agathabridgerton]

12 year old me 🤝 20 year old me: solavellan hell

[totentnz]

i will forever be the guy who picks a romance based on class and there is nothing i can do about it

[amatres]

meet cute in the wilds ❤

also morrigan speaks to you so kindly when you're in her mother's hut, it's always interesting to see

[floralovebot]

recently i've been a little obsessed with the character designs in dislyte and naturally i've been thinking of the winx in it and like,,, helia blessed by morrigan... dudes.....

[0alix0]

Rook's backgrounds make no sense or gatekeeping is good, actually

It's didn't sit well with me ever since bioware admitted that all 6 background for Rook can be played by any race you choose

Looking back at Origins it's clear why most of the backgrounds were race-specific. Not only it provided a better understanding of the separate cultures (you wouldn't really understand what dwarfs are about if you were able to play as a surface dwarf commoner) it also established the rules of the world (elves are opressed, you can't become a queen/king cuz the nobles will riot, humans colonize them and inforce their religion and rules on everyone, dwarfs are considered weird)

Now, looking at the veilguard, I can't help but ask:

How can a fully grown dalish with vallaslin be a crow? They buy slaves as a way to get more assassins, usually elves, children, so they could easier ruin their psyche. why the hell would a dalish stand for it?

How can a qunari be a Gray Warden? Wardens don't discriminate, sure, but this far, we haven't even heard of a qunari warden. Rook should be a legend, Rook should be questioned at actually being a warden by NPCs, OR sit in some Warden outpost and being studied by their mages, because no one actually knows how Blight and joining might work with Kossith body instead of running around with Varric.

Veiljumpers were organized by dalish, right? Then why in the world would a human be allowed to join? How and why did they change their minds to accept literally anyone, even if it's a potential threat/thief(Morrigan)/zealot/etc..?

How can a dwarf, someone who isn't even connected to the fade be a Veiljumper?

How can a dwarf be a part of the Mourn Watch? A Mortalitasi, an exclusively MAGE order? What can they even do?? Preform a non magical mummifications with herbs and salts like Egyptians did? Sweep the mausoleum? Be some sort of a funeral organizer/lawyer/genealogist? That could've been really interesting if only the game actually bothered to say anything about it. It did not

"Well it's up to your headcanons!" then why make the backgrounds in the first place??? They don't matter anyway!

I mean, obviously it was just a way to promote the game to older fans. Look, the backstories! The thing you've been craving for is back in game! Only they forgot what actually made them so great. The most important part. They mattered, they created a basis for my character. They gave them families, connections. They changed the way my character is perceived (elves in general) and what they can do plotwise (become a monarch/paragon).

I don't fucking care if 3-5 NPCs might have some additional dialogues for me, cuz they don't matter anyway. I don't even know these people, i never met them before, my character did, but I didn't. And now I don't care enough to know. like, i'm playing as a mourn watcher, but before going to Nevarra i barely knew anything about them, and what i know now is still rather surface level shit

Let alone the fact that all the backgrounds are practically the same. You pissed off some influencial people by doing good and was send away. Bravo.

........if this post gets one like I'm writing my own ideas for DA4 protagonist's backgrounds

[sha-brytols]

i think like. the best example i can come up with in regards to the lack of internalized understanding in the writing is the way queerness is portrayed in the game.

you have zevran, a bisexual man written by a gay man. he uses his sexuality as a weapon to both seduce and distract his enemies, but also as a way to cope with his fear of attachment. this is. obviously a tired trope about bisexuals, but bear with me here.

zevran is incredibly open about his sexuality in a very down to earth and honest way. a female warden romancing him cannot do so without also accepting that he is interested in men as well. he tells her, up front, he's slept with men. he likes the company of men. this does not negate his affection towards her or vice versa, but he will not be made to feel ashamed or uncomfortable about his attraction for the sake of someone who won't accept them as part of who he is.

one game later. you have anders. a bisexual man written by a straight woman. his bisexuality is locked behind a romanced male hawke who is. well. clearly. also queer. a female hawke has no knowledge of anders being interested in men, and the only point in which past relationships are alluded to anders vaguely speaks as though he's never had one before. his writer openly said this was to avoid alienating the female player. bisexual men are gross. women don't find it attractive when bisexual men sleep with other men. you cannot have a bisexual man who is open about his sexuality with a heterosexual woman, she might get insecure and thus the player would be offended.

and thats just the queer men. leliana, written by a straight person, has entire portions of her romance arbitrarily cut out entirely from a female warden. a female warden literally cannot flirt with her unless she flirts first. half of leliana's romance banter is locked behind a male warden. there's no external acknowledgement of a warden that romances both her and alistair in the same way that there is for a warden that romanced her and morrigan, because well duh! alistair can only be romanced by women. why would a woman romance leliana?

and then there's da2. the game where a male hawke can have a cute discussion about being into men with anders. where a male hawke can feel insecure about fenris leaving him because what if he isnt actually interested in men? the game where there was a gay man behind the scenes likely advocating for a better portrayal for queer men. but no queer women. isabela's romance with a femhawke gets almost no recognition as a fxf relationship outside of an EXTRAORDINARILY uncomfortable "lets have some girl fun 😜" merrill's romance with a femhawke gets weirdly rewritten into this. very. very odd semifreudian idol worship thing. a hawke that slept with isabela but moved on to merrill gets banter where its implied isabela actually still has feelings for them and is heartbroken that theyve moved on. a hawke that slept with isabela but moved onto anders/fenris gets "get over yourselves i did them too." because why would two women genuinely be interested in each other outside of sex when they have men?

it's a consistent problem. a consistent pattern. dorian's sexuality is front and center in his character and its done with the lens of a gay man who struggled with his own external environment in relation to his identity. sera's sexuality is a footnote in the game, barely alluded to outside of a few jokes and one moment where she'll reject a male inquisitor. and her romance is also a huge joke (which i dont mind i like how lighthearted it is, but is it not a huge contrast to how every other romance in the game is written? why is our first lesbian romance in the series given this treatment?) like it's a very interesting contrast to me in the way queerness is approached in the games depending on the writer's own experiences. and that's why i think a broader variety of voices would really benefit the series.

[athenasdragon]

Lot of good options in the notes. Here are my two proposals:

Some time after Zevran's banter with Shale about wanting to get Alistair to "hop borders," Leliana offhandedly mentions to Zevran that she got Morrigan to sleep with her once. Everyone in the active party is appropriately surprised but this never comes up again and Morrigan still won't romance a female PC.

The warden asks non-romanced Alistair to do the dark ritual and he's like "sleep with Morrigan? oh no.... never......." and it's heavily implied that they have a weird hatefucking/fwb thing happening

Ok you know how since DA2 there have been at least allusions to companions getting together if you don’t romance them. What would be the best/funniest version of that in Origins?

[libraford]

Okay so here's what's going on with the bird crimes.

On thursday I was going to Powers Park when I saw what I thought were 2 chickens hanging out in the parking lot, and a lady watching them from the fence. I thought... they could belong to the lady, but chickens aren't the kind of pet that you just let hang out loose.

I approach.

Lady: "These aren't mine."

I look closer. Its actually 2 roosters, one of which is a very small breed and is missing his tail feathers. Both of them have an injury to their backside- like its been plucked.

So we talk about what to do, I end up calling Animal Control. The actual Animal Control officer doesn't get there until noon, I get a police dispatcher. She says she can send one of the cops to grab them until the actual professional gets there.

I tell her that the roosters are being kept by the woman I met, she's coaxing them into her house.

I post about it on the facebook group in case someone knows who they belong to. The comments are full of jokes, obviously. But no leads. Eventually the big rooster gets caught by someone running a sanctuary for abandoned and abused livestock, but they're still looking for the little black one. Evidently they got out of the lady's backyard and were loose again.

I figure he's going to be a coyote snack and don't think about it for the rest of the week.

So now it is Sunday and I'm opening up the bathrooms. I'm at Summit Grove park and as I'm about to reserve the shelter for a birthday party I see...

A black pigeon.

Pigeons are not a common animal in this area- you're more likely to see house sparrows, crows, and mourning doves. So that's odd. What's more, she doesn't seem to be skittish and is definitely accustomed to humans. And she keeps trying to bite my fingers, so she associates hands with food and she's skinny as a rail so she's been abandoned for a minute.

Why does this keep happening to me? Is this the Morrigan come to teach me a lesson in pigeon form?

So I remember the number of the woman running the sanctuary and I give her a call. I tell her I've got a pigeon here that can't fly, is super hungry, and doesn't seem to have any issues biting fingers. She says she can't take her, but she can find a home for her because pigeons have specific needs. But she won't be able to get there until 12:30. We (my work partner and I) have to deal with the bird in the meantime.

We absolutely cannot take this bird with us on our route because we are in a tiny truck cab and don't have a cat carrier to put her in. So our solution is to lock her in the janitor's closet until the rep can get here.

Around 12:15, we head back to the shelter to make sure she's still there and hasn't been disturbed... and I realize that the reason I even saw her in the first place...

...was because there was supposed to be a birthday party at the shelter at noon.

The party is strongly underway and they have shoved a table against the door of the closet.

The sanctuary lady comes by and waves, we ask the party people politely to move the table slightly because we're trying to rehome a pigeon that's inside that closet.

They move the table, but not all guests see this interaction- because it looks like a bunch of maintenance people are just here to boss folks around during a little girl's birthday party and this draws a crowd.

The sanctuary rep arrives and we open the door just a little bit to let the bird out. She bobbles towards us, hoping for food, when one of the older ladies at the party exclaims:

"Does that ANIMAL just LIVE in there?!"

I mean... sure. For the past few hours, she did live in there.

"Do you have any IDEA how many DISEASES pigeons carry?"

The rep scoops the pigeon into her arms and takes her out of the shelter area to inspect her wings, feet, and back. She shows us her breastbone and explains that its been several days since the bird ate anything, which was why it was going for fingers.

Meanwhile, Aunt Ornithophobia over here: "I can't BELIEVE you would just TOUCH a BIRD like that in front of CHILDREN!"

We take the bird away to the van so the rep can thank us and explain what likely happened- which is that someone abandoned the bird when they couldn't take care of her anymore they just let her loose.

"I understand you got one of the roosters," I said.

"Yes, the big one. But the little bantam rooster is very fast- he darted into someone's backyard and I never found him again. If you see him, give me a call."

"I've been told that chickens are legal to own here, but roosters are not."

She gets an exasperated look on her face. "If you're going to allow backyard chickens, you're going to have to allow roosters. It's impossible to sex an avian chick and they don't get their dimorphic traits until they've reached the young adult stage and chick sellers don't care about whether they're a hen or a rooster. They care about the sale. We get roosters more often than egg-layers because someone sold them a male as a female and they don't want to pay the fine. I'd rather have the laws allow both, or neither. But disallowing roosters is patently stupid."

"Hm. Well. Note to self."

"Anyways, you're heroes to this little rock dove and I want you two to know that. She's going on a trip to a bird sanctuary in Toledo where she'll have lots and lots of snacks to eat that aren't fingers."

[baphometsss]

Sometimes, the lack of romance actually benefits characters more than the alternative. There's a whole host of reasons why I think this can be the right narrative choice, but I need to be clear first in saying that I don't think romance is bad, or inherently reductive, or anything like that. Romance can be incredibly powerful and profound and make a story better, if it's done well. It's just that sometimes, adding this particular dynamic to a relationship does more harm than good. It's kind of a very broad issue, but I'm using Solas and Mythal as a jumping off point for why I think that is.

The problem with turning their relationship into a romantic love story is that it takes it in a direction which is reductive, and overly simplistic, not just for their relationship but for the two as individual characters. We are told that it's a very old, very profound bond that was marred by narcissism, pride, trauma, betrayal, magical bullshit, and myriad other issues. It's underpinned by an overwhelming devotion that to some reads as romantic. Yet this misses the point and demystifies a relationship steeped in gorgeous lore, one rooted in a state of existence that is described in canon as inherently asexual and aromantic. The story is made more profound in every way by that relationship not being romantic, especially in the context of all the lore surrounding their origins.

For example, Mythal is described as being charismatic and beloved by her people. Even though we know she wasn't as kind as she's made out to be because some of the shit she did was pretty fucking heinous. Nevertheless, the sentinels spent an eternity protecting her temple. Abelas changed his name when she died. He leaves once the Well has been drunk from, and never drank from it himself. In 'memories of a duet', she is described as having followers who are 'mindlessly devoted' to her. The point is, Solas is not the only one who was devoted to her. She was obviously extremely charismatic and powerful, even if she didn't actually live up to her hype, or had motivations that were not so kind. This is because she was benevolent in comparison to the other Evanuris, who were tyrants.

The problem with Mythal as a love interest begins with the fact that she lacks a lot of autonomy in the story already. We don't get to see much of her that isn't coming through some kind of filter, whether that's Solas, Flemeth, Morrigan, or from other ancient elves. She gets two opportunities to speak directly (in optional content no less) and that's it. I get that she's dead, but I think she suffers for the narrative choices they made in dealing with her remains. There's far too many people telling us about her and not enough opportunities to talk to her directly. Needless to say, she does not pass the Bechdel test.

Adding a romantic bent to hers and Solas's relationship only makes this worse. She doesn't benefit from it at all; you could argue that Solas does, but it's not all about him. She suffers because she's secondary to Solas when she should've been the main big bad; she should've had some narrative thread that didn't revolve around a man. We know she loves Solas, as her Crossroads fragment says so to a Qunari Rook; yet the love comparison that's being made there is actually to Shathaan and Taash, who are mother and child. Once again, we have a female character who is being reduced to either a bride or a mother by the story. No wonder she abuses those roles, as wife to Elgar'nan and all-mother to the elves. No wonder she turns into a dragon for fun. It's the only way she gets any autonomy. All she wanted, I would argue, was to preserve Benevolence in the world so she would not lose her original purpose when it became lost to Elgar'nan's Tyranny.

For Solas, we know he never wanted to be a person. He was peacefully semi-existing in the Fade, reflecting Wisdom as he was made to do. He connects as a spirit for most of his existence. One of the reasons he's bad at relationships with others is because he doesn't know how to connect as a person in the way they do. He only knows how to connect as a spirit. A romance with the Inquisitor, like the friendships he forms in Inquisition, are made more profound by the fact that he is only able to connect like that specifically because they are not, with the exception of Cole, spirits, and he is hiding his spirit origin from them. Cole is his comfort zone; it's part of why he's against making him more human--without Cole being spirit-natured, he's forced to connect with him like a person.

It's here that I think Trick was spot on when they said that you can only appreciate Solas's character in Inquisition fully if you romance him; in the romance, he is able to connect as a person and a spirit for the first time without sacrificing any part of himself. A romanced Lavellan loves him for who he chooses to be, who he wants to be, who he always wanted to be, and by Trespasser and Veilguard, for a whole lot more than that too. He himself says he doesnt want them to see what he becomes, which I think is partially true; he knows it will get ugly and he doesn't want them to see that side to him. It breaks his heart when they say 'I never thought of you as someone who would do that.' Lavellan reflects his best qualities, everything he loves, that is why she is literally his heart, and he can't bear to lose one of these final reflections of who he truly is. In Veilguard, Lavellan accurately points out that it's also because he knows that, with more time, they'd be able to make him give up his plans, like he almost did already. Ironically, it's only through this process of trying to restore the world of spirits that he too becomes more like a person.

Turning all these bonds into the second time all of this has happened to him does make his story in DAI less compelling. Solas never having been in love, never having been able to connect with non-spirits easily, is what all this change hinges on. Especially considering how close he came to abandoning his plans and doing what he wanted, which was to stay with his lover and friends. Quite simply, it does not make sense without it having been the first time he'd been in love, or bonded with non-spirits and come to appreciate personhood fully, because he'd never have risked falling in love or befriending anyone if he'd known. He himself says he tried not to.

Of course, it's mixed up with his feelings around personhood that defined many of his conflicts with Mythal. His relationship with Mythal, from his end, is largely underpinned by a yearning to return to a simpler time, when they were both spirits semi-existing in the Fade. No doubt Solas had many friends like her in the beginning; he is described as being very beloved by the spirits. His friends are all spirits with a 'shared heart'. Many of them were likely killed in the war, or given bodies and changed until he didn't recognise them anymore while he struggled with his own nature. It's what makes Solas's character so tragic.

So Mythal and Solas have this bond formed in something deeply primordial; I still really like my siphonophore analogy. They're fragments of a much larger cosmic body, children or fragments of the Maker. There's something very cosmically horrific about this; it quite literally cannot be compared to anything because we, the player, have no reference point for this. Spirits are meant to be weird and inhuman. They're meant to be abstract and difficult to understand. It's what makes them so damn cool.

So I think, no matter how hard some people try to spin the romance angle, it always comes off as reductive and frankly boring for them, not just because everything else we have is so much more interesting without it, but because romance inevitably eclipses everything else. People start to put them in neat little boxes--highly gendered boxes too. Furthermore, once sex and romance are involved, it becomes the motivating factor in every little interaction, intentionally or not. It doesn't have to, but few people are good enough at writing romance to avoid doing this. Either the devs were aware of this and this is partly why they avoided going down that road with Solas and Mythal--like they abandoned the apparently intended path of Solas being under a geas--or they just couldn't figure out a way of including a romance there without letting it eclipse everything else. So it's not canon. It's just vague, which I think they lean on far too heavily, but that's a different matter.

This isn't meta about shipping, but I do think that this is why shipping can be detrimental to enjoying a piece of media. Shipping is fun, but it very quickly becomes repetitive. I don't know how many times I've seen the same tropes thrown around in fandom again and again. People sometimes twist characters so much to fit a ship that they lose what the character was originally about, and this can be annoying when you love a character and the lore so much.

Considering how poor fandom can be at reading the actual content, it doesn't surprise me that some people choose to interpret it in the most simplistic and demystified way possible.

THAT SAID I do have another post in my drafts about how mysteriously Solas and Lavellan's relationship is portrayed in DATV, but that's kind of in a very different vein and I'm not done with it yet. I still need to mull it over a little more.

[extremely-judgemental]

Ways Rhysand has been manipulative but no one noticed.

I find it strange that Rhysand never gets angry with Feyre. Not once in four books, omitting the first of course. Some may argue it’s because he is a loving partner who understands her that well. That’s plausible if Rhysand didn’t have any anger issues.

To preface this, Feyre naturally has darkness in her that isn’t overt until ACOMAF, and with Rhysand, she gets the freedom to be herself without judgement even if she is wrong. Feyre is not brainwashed to become Rhysand’s puppet, however, she is a victim of his control, lies, and manipulation to a degree.

One of the biggest flaw in Tamlin is his anger. It’s how he becomes a danger to Feyre, to his friends, to everyone around him. But what people miss is that Rhysand isn’t that different either. While one’s expression is explosive and physical, the other’s is more psychological.

There are clear instances when Feyre acts on her own or disagrees with Rhysand, but she is never the subject of his temper. One such scene is when she goes looking for the Suriel (because this stands out a lot to me and my memory sucks).

Considering Rhysand’s character, it’s not unreasonable to believe he’d lash out on Morrigan first and then Nesta. But the moment Feyre is back, he is the epitome of love and compassion.

We know he is easily provoked just as any other MC. He lost his mate while he was out in the battle somewhere and when she returns, he is collected. Where frustration and anger would be justified, he is as calm as the dead.

There is a mix of emotions like fear and relief too, but I am talking about expression here. Not what he feels, rather how he presents them and lets others see him.

If I had a telepathic partner with whom I share a consensual live stream of feelings and thoughts all day long, I’d be more frustrated that he put me through the very thing that he knows will hurt me. But Rhysand never has a negative reaction to Feyre. Ever.

This is the same old ‘Rhysand is better than Tamlin’ or ‘Rhysand will never hurt Feyre’ propaganda but it fails. It’s impossible to not get angry with anyone ever. At some point, something will disappoint you no matter how deep the love is.

Also, if Rhysand treated everyone from this level, this wouldn’t be out of norm. He is very expressive when it comes to his anger—with Cassian, Azriel, Lucien, Tamlin, Morrigan at least once, and obviously, Nesta. He doesn’t hold back his words and often his temper is translated into dominance, his High Lord power that he uses to subdue the rest of them. This happens time and time again but seen as a badass move where Rhysand is always right.

So why is Feyre spared? It isn’t out of love. It’s about control. Cassian, Azriel, Amren, and Morrigan owe Rhysand for the life they currently have. There is always a limit to how far they can push him. When they cross it, he uses his rank to put them in their place. He can’t do the same with Feyre because the moment he does that, he becomes exactly like Tamlin. The illusion of the High Lady title shatters.

It’s so Feyre never sees him for who he is. As long as it’s not directed at her, she will sit on her high horse and coddle him, like she does about his hatred for Nesta. Feyre is self-centred and she can’t take criticism. Imagine if Rhysand pushes her too far, Feyre will leave him like she left Tamlin. Because of the bond, Rhysand will suffer. He will also lose Nyx, an extension of him.

The only way to keep Feyre under his control will be to make her feel loved and safe in whatever delusional capacity so she never questions him, proven by the pregnancy debacle.

Which is why this isn’t a sign of emotional maturity rather a repression of his true feelings to get his way.

Anyway, I consider this an oversight from SJM because she doesn’t let Rhysand be himself. She desperately wants to show how he is the perfect match for Feyre, the greatest partner anyone can ever have. But the contrast in his behaviour screams manipulation.

[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.