#solavellan critical

[durgeapologist]

it's literally comical how obvious it is. especially if you are a peruser of chat bots on sites like c.ai, j.ai, or spicy ai; you can TELL it is the biggest load of ai in the fucking world.

why not put actual effort into something dealing with your favorite ship? why bulldoze over other fic authors who devote so much time and tears to creating their own pieces and fic works, all with a fucking computer generated story that reads like a goddamn thesaurus? it's so disgusting to me. do better fr.

there's this one solavellan fic on ao3 rn that's getting crazy praise and attention, but it's so clearly written by ai. it's like the "author" barely bothers to hide it at all and everyone is just eating it up. i don't want to expose them bc i want to let people enjoy things but as a writer myself it really fucking bugs me out icl

[thedissonantverses]

“Veilguard refuses to address why the Veil needs to stay up.”

No. It does. We’ve been addressing it since Trespasser. Literally the plot of the game. It’s the whole reason we’re here. The Veil stays up cause Solas is wrong to want to kill innocent people to fix his mistakes instead of letting the people of Thedas take care of their home themselves.

Solas isn’t the main character of Veilguard, or Dragon Age. Signed,

-A Solavellan shipper who cares more about the lore than Solas because I know what franchise I’m playing.

[fenrelmercar]

Woobification of Solas.

This is a fandom critical post. Proceed at your own risk.

Let me start this piece off by saying that this post is not meant to target a specific demographic of the fandom. If you feel targeted, that’s on you. 

In this essay, I want to talk about the infantilization, woobification, or just good plain headcanoning the bad out of Solas. Mostly it comes down to a few of the most regurgitated lines of thinking: he is a spirit of wisdom despite everything he does or has done and he is just confused and perverted from his natural state, Solas is his true self while Fen’Harel or The Dread Wolf are just select masks he wears. The sentiment is so strong that at points it comes down to disregarding or ‘uncanoning’ the entire storyline of The Veilguard because in the minds of individuals that follow this school of thought it does injustice to the character of Solas they have created in their minds. In their minds, it is bad writing to show Solas being a prideful, treacherous liar. 

Because the man, who led rebellion for centuries using dubious means, using creatures he claims to respect as if they are expandable, killing his closest confidant because he dared to oppose him outright somehow is a paragon of virtue that is just bent out of shape by his misguided loyalty. All the atrocities he has committed through thousands of years he had a physical form comes down to him being manipulated and emotionally abused by his former closest friend Mythal and later by grief and anger of losing her. Slapping the label of emotional distress and trauma on a perpetrator of … well, quite literally, war crimes, does make them more palatable, but it does not mean it should be seen as a normal practice. The acts Solas commits during the war with Titans, his rebellion against the Evanuris, and later on in current day Thedas are being construed as desperate actions of a broken man, wisdom twisted from his purpose and left to fend for himself, despite his self-induced isolation. So let me ask you this: how many acts of desperation does it take to realize that they are becoming choices? 

Yes, he was manipulated through their shared emotional bonds by Mythal. Yes, he was coerced to leave his spirit form in favor of a physical body. Then Mythal used his wisdom as a weapon, warping him against his own beliefs, making him participate in the war in ways he did not wish to. Yes, he was pushed by Evanuris’ cruelty to rebel and then lost what he perceived as his only friend to their arrogant ways and later had to live through her death by their hands. He was broken to the point he could not see a way out and doomed the entire way of Elven existence just to win the fight against the cruel and the unjust. Yes, he is a man who lost his people and his version of the world due to his own actions. He is a traumatized, sad, lonely man, who has predetermined himself to the path from which he cannot see a way back. And yet, many of the steps he took along the way cannot be downplayed as acts of a spirit of Wisdom that was bent out of shape by grief and desperation. Destroying the Titans and leaving their children orphaned is seen as an act of devotion and unconditional love towards his manipulator, Mythal. But as the world’s best detective, Jake Peralta has once said: “Cool motive. Still a murder.”

And now we arrive at the most beloved sentiment. Solas is his true self. Fen’Harel is just a mask. Oh, boy.

Everyone says that they hate one-dimensional characters until they are served a multifaceted one on the platter. Then they get to declawing and defanging them, ripping their personality apart into this and that, robbing them of parts of them that make them whole, and when that is not enough, they take on dulling off any edges they might find too abrasive. Assassination of the character is just the beginning; the remains have to be sanitized and scrubbed off any wrongdoing whatsoever, so supporting them doesn’t seem like a moral failing on fandom’s part. 

Cutting Solas and Fen’Harel apart as if they are some conjoined twins, where Fen’Harel is the evil one, is stripping Solas of things that are inherent parts of his character for the sake of feeling more comfortable with his actions. Solas is kind, caring, and wise. Fen’Harel is prideful, scheming, and treacherous. These two sides of him are now separated by their representation in the Inquisition and Veilguard. In Inquisition, he is Solas - a thoughtful mage obsessed with dreams, a soft-spoken man keen on sharing his knowledge. Except for the part where he doesn’t see current Thedosians as real people. Where everyone is tranquil in his eyes and thus, lesser. People, who he is willing to sacrifice to achieve his goals. The thoughtful things he said by the end of the road to the Inquisitor he supposedly cared for:

“I will do what I must, but there is no benefit in allowing harm to come to innocents before it's necessary.”

“I will save the Elven people, even if it means this world must die.”

“As this world burned in the raw chaos, I would have restored the world of my time... the world of the elves.”

And then he mutilated them. Yes, he did it to save their life. But the Inquisitor had no choice in the matter. What if my Inquisitor would have rather died than lost their arm? Doesn’t matter, because our thoughtful, kind apostate knows better. A kind apostate who sacrificed his world to avenge Mythal, but then by the time of the Inquisition killed her all over again. For power, of all things. And then he stripped the dignity of the one who carried what remained of Mythal through ages by depicting her as an elf, proving once again that he does not see current Thedosians, humans, as real. 

The most egregious crime of Solas’ portrayal in Veilguard seems to be painting him as a liar. Because in the Inquisition he didn’t lie. He just avoided telling the truth. He shaded it in a comfortable tale that no one would question. He spun the narrative. Solas made himself appear as an apostate mage who has gained all his knowledge from the Fade. He crumbled just enough truth without revealing his hand. Or simply said he was lying by omission. Luckily to him, no one would ever ask a random mage if, by chance, they are the infamous Fen’Harel, so he doesn’t need to lie outright. 

And what did he do in Veilguard while not being his true self and wearing that mask of Fen’Harel, that degree of separation from his true, kind self and the trickster god? He spun the narrative. He said just enough truth to be believed. He was deceitful. Solas can be caught saying one outright lie—“I abhor blood magic.” Oh, wait. He can be caught lying exactly one time in Inquisition too—if you confront him about missing court intrigue. So much for a completely different man in Veilguard. 

Fen’Harel as a mask is such a beloved statement that it disregards thousands of years of his life. “I was Solas first. Fen'harel came later, an insult I took as a badge of pride.” A badge of pride Felassan used to flock followers to his side. Badge of pride he wore all through his rebellion. The one he tried to reclaim once meeting Dalish of the current day Thedas. One he used to amass following during the events of Trespasser. How many millennia can a person willingly wear a mask and not have it be a part of who they are?

And then we end up here, where somehow the portrayal of Solas in certain parts of fandom becomes an eerily similar story to that of Portrait of Dorian Grey. We have this beautiful, virtuous man, who’s telling you the most fascinating stories of the Fade, lulling you with his kind voice and beautiful eyes. One who was manipulated, traumatized, desperate, and pushed to act against his good nature. One who would tear down the Veil to restore what was lost and make the world right again. An idealist, working towards his goal. Damned be the sacrifices it requires. Because being hurt in some minds absolves people of guilt. Some agree with his goals and damn his ugly side to the attic. The one who manipulated, one who deceived and killed. One who has the blood of countless lives on his hands. One has to exist for the other to reach that goal. One who is just as much part of his true self as the other. 

Solas is Fen’Harel. Fen’Harel is Solas. One could not exist without the other. And to love someone truly, we must accept the good, the bad, and the ugly. Because to be loved is to be seen fully. Loving a villain is not a moral failing. And yes, he is a villain. Doing something horrible for the sake of something good is still, at the core, doing something horrible. 

Love him because of the awful things he did and in spite of them.

[hyperbali]

"Rook never knew the real Solas, it's just a mask, only Lavellan knows the real Solas 🥺"

[shoutydwarf]

Veilguard ending spoilers

It's so hard for me to talk about how I feel about Solas because on one hand, there's great potential in his arc, but on the other, bioware has completely butchered that in such a profound way that I don't care to look past the hiccups to enjoy him.

First, he's race locked. This really doesn't help to contest the idea that he's a supremacist. If it was truly a time crunch issue where they added it so late they couldn't add the other races, but knew at the time what Solas was and what he meant to the plot - why, on gods green fucking earth, was it included at all? Because they spend the whole next game trying really hard to convince you he's not just an ages old racist stuck in his ways, only to not just have race locked him but to hide his most egregious act, of which he committed against a certain race he's known to be racist towards.

You'll be hard pressed to catch a certain type of solavellan, which encompasses the majority of them, even saying the word titan. The part that baffles me is you'll also be hard pressed to hear SOLAS HIMSELF saying it in game. If I'm recalling correctly, I only heard him say it one singular time outside of the mural memories. At the very end of the game.

There is zero acknowledgement on his part of what he did, at least not in any meaningful way. The orb that the evanuris made their foci out of that Solas says is an elven artifact? Titan heart. The dagger he made? Titan blood. The empire of Arlathan? Founded on the blood and genocide of titans. And I mean that in the most literal sense that I can. All of their godly powers that they used to create their empire was pulled from the well of titan souls they locked within the Golden City.

It's fucking poetic at this point. They silenced the titans so good and well that it seems not even Solas remembers what his glorious kingdom of old cost. It's even funnier if you stand in front of him as a Cadash or a dwarf!Rook.

This man they're trying SO HARD to beat into you around every corner that he's so so sad, he's so so full of regret and sorrow, he's so depressed and anguished over his deeds, not once acknowledges in a way that matters that what he and the evanuris did to the titans was wrong. And if he doesn't feel remorse over that in any way that's loud enough for him to talk about it as he does the veil, how the fuck am I supposed to believe he's sorry for all the other things?

Weekes has admitted to literally, somehow, casually forgetting dwarves don't dream when they were writing the scene of the Haven dream with Solas and the Inquisitor. Add this to how many lines dwarf!rook has of comparing things to dreams, casting necromancy spells etc and it becomes pretty clear that they never intended to afford this genocided race lore reveal the gravity it needed. They just needed it as a minor plot device in a greater elven narrative that completely, utterly, 100% unravels the message they're desperate to send with Solas. They really said to solavellans don't worry, kittens, he committed a really heinous, unforgivable act that he's not taking any strides to repair but we're not going to have him talk about it at all so you can continue ignoring it and scrolling tiktok during Harding's questline. And yall said okay ❤️ yay ❤️.

And no, you can't argue that his goal was always to tear down the Veil to restore immortality/magic to the elves AND wake up the titans. Because those are two separate things, and one of those things he never once said he was doing. He doesn't need the titans awake to take down the Veil and restore Arlathan. In fact, he very much needs them to stay tranquil, otherwise he'd finally get the ass whooping he fucking deserves when my dwarves not only attack his unguarded kneecaps with hammers but start chucking rocks at him and booing loudly.

This is why he's irredeemable for me. This is why I wanted an ending where I can kill him, not because I hate him as a concept or even as a character, but because his writing is such a fucking joke. And putting him into a sock and banging him against the counter is the only valid response to such a cosmic fumble because it's the only option that matches its freak in being so ridiculous. It's bad writing, it's weak, cheap, lazy, and directly crumbles the entire foundation.

While the ending of having him spend eternity soothing the dreams of the titans is excellent in form, because although it doesn't show him taking accountability it does show him taking steps to repair the damage he did to them, I don't ever get to establish, as a dwarf Rook or even just as a player, that THAT is why I want him to do this. Nobody says, "Make this right by earning the forgiveness of your first victim." Instead, for Solas, it's like, "well, since I have to go there anyway, I might as well. I guess. Whatever."

All this while they're in that AMA saying shit like "two groups are more affected than any other by the evanuris - the elves and (wait for it) Tevinter."

A fucking joke, I tell you.

[durgeapologist]

you bitches who are so fucking wound up abt solas and dav, and are actively wishing death on rook or calling them names are such fucking losers.

it especially shows ur intentions when you only refer to rook as a female. with she/her pronouns. it's getting tiring seeing this shit on my tl fr. u think we have crazy hcs? just because we want our rook alive? fr?

saw someone on r*ddit who said rook wouldn't survive that gut wound even though it's the same exact one solas received in the fight ending. y'know, the one that doesn't kill him.

saw another who said solas would watch rook slowly bleed out and die because he despises rook for failing as a leader.

bffr.

i fucking hate y'all sometimes. fr. embarrassing.

also bc y'all are embarrassing yourselves still: rook doesn't go to the fade in the fight ending. they go to the fade in the sacrifice ending. but y'all wouldn't know anything about that because you only care about the romanced ending. bc y'all only see solas as a romance option, and not as his own person. but y'all aren't ready for that conversation either so.

eta: the fact y'all think this is about every single s*lavellan in the world is a testament to your critical thinking skills. truly. IF THIS POST BOTHERS YOU, IT'S BECAUSE YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. misunderstanding the clearly worded intent of my post just tells me y'all ain't worth the salt y'all think you are.

[inanshalla]

ppl attacking mythal as if solas is any better he used lavellan too (and by extension any inquisitor he had a friendship with)

he entered a relationship with lavellan KNOWING it was wrong from the start but did it anyway, his dialogue on the inquisitor wanting to pursue a relationship reflects this

he says “I’m not sure this is the best idea. It could lead to trouble”

if the inquisitor apologizes for kissing him he blurts out that she has nothing to apologize for or if she feels like she’s pressuring him after the kiss he says she isn’t at all he’s ‘perhaps’ just pressuring himself. He knows it’s wrong. Also his distance reflects that as well. He tries to pull away several times bc he knows it’s wrong and yeah he admits he was selfish for getting involved with her.

not saying he did it specifically to be a manipulative asshole I don’t think he’s some mustache twirling villain but in general one is less likely to see the faults in someone they are dating/in love with

just bc lavellan pursues him of her own volition (under false pretenses, mind you) doesn’t mean it’s less problematic especially because he’s being VERY vague about why it’s not the best idea to get romantically involved.

Also to add, the balcony scene that locks you in his romance, he’s talking about mythal but in so many words. He hasn’t seen the wisdom the inquisitor has since his experiences in the Fade… where he was a spirit and close to mythal.

“it would be kinder in the long run, losing you would be…” this man is talking about MYTHAL and her betrayal and death

it’s pretty obvious that he was seeing the inquisitor as mythal throughout inquisition if he has high approval/romance

[postcardsfromheapside]

One of my favorite books (a story about a serial killer, no less) starts "I have long been fascinated by the notion that knowledge can be created about the past."

The idea was that time, and a zoomed out perspective, and research, provides one with insight that people living in the time and space being examined couldn't possibly know.

This is sort of how I feel about Veilguard.

Solas discussion under the break.

Once Veilguard came out, so many things changed their context due to the insight provided by "time" and perspective.

In the interaction depicted here, the person I snipped this from feels that this is heartwarming. I've made no denial in the past that I found Solas irritating in the way he treated the Dalish, and always told him as such in the game, but seeing this feels especially frustrating post-Veilguard. Instead of reading this as him feeling shamed, I now see his pride being appeased.

"Oh, but he was treated badly by the Dalish he encountered-"

Solas is, for lack of a better term, a god. He is not only an adult, he ought to functionally and emotionally be above the petty blows of mortals who he continues to see as children. Instead, his pride is hurt when he isn't accepted by the Dalish (we later learn that, according to him, he attempted to reveal himself and they not only didn't accept him, but continued worshipping his rival, which I'm sure did not help his pride). He belittles the Dalish, and only feels appeased when Lavellan speaks to him in a humbled manner.

It's maddening, because later in Skyhold, he has a moment in which he wonders if the Dalish aren't so bad...because they produced Lavellan.

And yet...he learns nothing from this. He never changes his mind about the Dalish. He tries to convince Lavellan to remove her vallaslin, an important cultural marker, and maybe succeeds, but leaves her regardless. By the time we get through the end fight of Veilguard, if you have Davrin with you, Solas verbally jabs at him, asking if he's told the Dalish all about how awful he is (is this really the most important thing to be talking about right now, Solas?) and it's only when Davrin reminds him of how they're cleaning up HIS mess at the moment, that Solas subsides.

Almost everything about what he does feels as if he has to be reminded that he's the uber-adult here, with thousands of years of experience and knowledge. He ought to be the only regulating himself. And yet every single time, it's a mortal having to do the one wrangling him.

I hope you all know, I think Solas is a great antagonist. He's acted by GDL to the hilt, and I thought his performance in Veilguard was fucking masterful and I enjoyed every minute of interacting with him.

But holy shit, Lavellans, I just think y'all deserve better. Maybe a Pete Davidson.

[lizzybeeee]

Me watching my Inquisitor walk off with Solas at the end of the game like :) "aw cute ..hey if Mythal hadn't told you to stop would you have murdered her,," (I haven't played the other endings yet).

This!!!

(Obviously, not murdered her personally, but he absolutely had no qualms about doing the ritual once more - knowing the consequences of it.)

Let me preempt this by saying that I wanted there to be a happy/fulfilling ending to Solas and Lavellan. I'm not a blind hater! Just someone who finds it very hard to put my own Lavellan in the place of the 'Lavellan' provided to us in DATV.

The Solas/Lavellan relationship already was kind of iffy (power imbalance, constantly dragging her culture, removing her vallaslin/then dumping her, constantly lying to her, etc...) but DAI did a great job of making you feel sympathetic towards his plight - especially after Trespasser! He woke up in a world so divorced from his own that it was unrecognizable - the people he had done so much for were suffering from the consequences of his actions, justified as they may have been at the time (stopping the evanuris). His actions led to great suffering in the pursuit of preventing even greater suffering.

Even after we learned of his plans in Trespasser, it was very much: "cool motive, still murder."

I felt sympathetic towards Solas and the implication that we could change his mind, given to us in Trespasser, gave me hope that we would be able to convince him of another path. That he could find a place in Thedas as it is now and look to the future. That was why I chose the option to try and get through to Solas, despite knowing that his plan would lead to mass death/terror if it went ahead.

I always expected the Veil to fall at some point, but i was hoping there'd be some more nuance to it than: veil gone, demons everywhere, lots of people die. Well, I was very wrong lmao.

But, if anything, the game made me entirely unsympathetic towards Solas.

The moment he started his ritual he chose the old elven empire over Lavellan - over her family, friends, home, culture, and anything else she may have loved/valued.

And he did this twice.

He chose to pursue lowering the Veil - knowing that thousands would likely die. For all his insistence of 'minimizing the damage' he went in knowing that many more people would die because of his actions. There was no justification of stopping the evanuris this time either - no excuse of not knowing the potential consequences of his actions like the first time.

He chose to begin the ritual that ended up releasing the Elven Gods - knowing full well the risks it entailed.

He killed Varric - whether by accident or not, it was by his hand.

He chose to use blood magic to manipulate Rook into thinking that Varric was alive - puppeting his corpse around in Rook's eyes and putting his words into Varric's mouth.

He chose to manipulate, mold, and guilt Rook into the old 'switcheroo' in his mind palace/regret prison

He chose to 'free' the elven people by bringing down the Veil - regardless of their feelings about it (elven Rook can call him out on this!), never mind the consequences or ramifications of a bunch of people suddenly having their bodily autonomy overwritten by now being magic/having immortality.

He looked at the devastation caused the by the Gods and still went ahead with trying to bring down the veil again.

These are the thing he does in-game - not even mentioning making the dwarves/titans tranquil, creating the blight, started the chain of events that led to SOUTHERN THEDAS BEING DESTROYED, and taking my good gear from Inquisition!

Aside from the 'all lore leads to Solas' reveal just being really dull it also does nothing to help with making me sympathetic to him as a character. The audacity of this man to say: "it was like walking in a world of tranquil" when he fucking lobotomized the dwarves/titans is wild in retrospect.

If he didn't do the ritual at the beginning, if something else went wrong and that resulted in the God's being released, I could understand why a Lavellan would still want to get through to him. It would make sense - she could stop him from doing it again at the end too! You can still have him conflicted and torn between the restoring the past or pursuing the future - but this doesn't happen!

He never chose Lavellan in this game! Hell, it's Mythal who convinces him to stop?!! He owes her nothing! He's learned nothing from this!!! He's only stopped because Mythal 'pardoned/freed' him - once again showing that he values the ancient elves/mythal over her!!!

How impactful would it have been to have him choose Lavellan over Mythal! To show us this! Mythal, who 'crawled through the ages for a reckoning' (which was retconned to her being sad about the elves lmao) telling Solas to go through with the ritual and him touching grass and saying 'no'.

It's something I feel was wildly out of character for him as well - he never came across in DAI as being subservient to Mythal, if anything the ending cutscene gave me the impression they were equals?!

After everything he did in this game - after all we learn about what he did in the past - I had no interest in reasoning/appealing with his ass. None whatsoever. My inquisitor/Lavellan asking if Solas can be reasoned with only made me regret making that choice - perhaps other people's inquisitor's would say that, but mine would not, especially after everything that happened in game.

She came across as delusional: standing on the ruins of a blighted Minrathous, the south blighted to hell, dead all around them, blight tentacles everywhere, a gaping hole in the Fade right next to them:

Lavellan: "I forgive you! All you have to do is stop." Solas: "But I cannot."

Boom! There it is.

At this point it's not romantic, it's just sad! Sad that she's spent 10 years pining after a man who seemed to learn nothing at all from what happened in DAI.

------------------------

There should have been some sort of a dialogue option with Lavellan right before you go into the big fight - she can ask you what you think of Solas, if he's truly regretful for everything that happened, and then you can give her an answer that can 'change' her approach to Solas in the end - giving the player some agency as to how their Inquisitor would actually respond to this.

Ending One: Bye Bye Bye

Rook: "HE'S A GUY."

alternatively, "Look around you! Look at what Solas has done - what he's threatening to do even now after all of this! You gave him every chance to turn away from this path. So did Varric...and look at what he did!"

Lavellan is bitter/angry with Solas: "It seems we never were people to you after all."

Refers to him as 'Fen'harel' and not Solas - dig the knife in deeper, give us angst!

"Just go. You love the Fade, don't you? Enough to do all this - enough to kill Varric for your pride in a dead world that no longer exists. We were never 'real' to you, were we?"

Solas says his goodbyes, expresses his love, and Lavellan steps back.

Solas leaves voluntarily, his 'situation-ship very much over', to stew in his regrets for the rest of his life.

Ending Two: Bittersweet Goodbye

Rook: "Girl, it's been 10 years."

alternatively, "You loved him once, perhaps you still do even now - after all he's done - but love wasn't enough. Love does not excuse this."

Lavellan is firm with Solas, does not excuse his actions, but has a bitter sweet farewell: "I had hoped…it doesn't matter what I hoped. You made your choice - it wasn't me. It wasn't our friends. It wasn't this world. You can make a choice now - if I ever mattered you. If I, if our friends, were ever real to you."

They can have a final goodbye, a goodbye smooch, and then he can go off to the Fade.

Bittersweet ending - acknowledge what they had and then provide closure.

Ending Three: Happy Ending (?)

Rook: "He didn't mean it babe. He's tots sorry."

alternatively, "He seems to regret what's happened - I've seen his memories, his regrets. He believes this is the only path he has. Perhaps you can convince him to find another."

Default Lavellan ending basically

"There is no fate but the love we share" blah blah blah

As happy an ending as it can be when you have Lavellan fuck off to the Fade - leaving behind her life, friends, family, and whatever remains of the world for an eternity.

I'm being mean but I genuinely wanted a happy/fulfilling ending for them both too - despite the fact that this game seems to want that ending as well, it did little to convince me of that. :(

I genuinely liked Solas in DAI - despite his flaws, I thought his romance was compelling and I was hoping to be able to convince him to change/alter his path. I can see what they were trying to do with him in DATV but it's so hard to feel sympathy for him when we see/know the results of his actions. The story in this game is doing anything but convincing me to give him a 'happy ending'.

'Love' can't excuse what he did and neither would my Lavellan.

Also RIP Sandal's Prophecy about the Fade lmao

[wardencallings]

Dipping my toes into extremely dangerous waters to say that it still bothers me that an entire experience of Trespasser and DATV is locked to characters who are not elf women specifically.

[thedissonantverses]

Okay but saying your media literacy isn’t bad and it’s Veilguard that’s the problem and then writing a whole essay about what a terrible protagonist Rook is, using no capitalization mind you, because they caused a double blight and are never held accountable, is actually wild behavior. That’s not good analysis it’s ranting.

Oh and it’s fun watching bigots latch onto your “essays” (you say essay I say incoherent rambling holy shit learn how to edit) because they need any excuse to shout “writing bad” because they turned VG into part of the culture war but you don’t care. Your bad media literacy is actively causing harm it’s that bad.

Rook didn’t let the Evanuris out. Solas did when he stabbed and killed his friend. He’s a liar. This isn’t my interpretation it’s the plot.

For like the 100th time critique Veilguard all you want just stop sucking at it so hard.

[ree-duh]

So my biggest gripe with my solavellan run so far is solas doesn’t really learn anything from Lavellan about the dalish and I feel like that’s really disappointing because he’s so averse to them when that is where the “woman he loves” comes from yet he hasn’t presented any curiosity about her roots and only really shows hostility and for what?? He approached a singular Dalish clan and insisted their views were wrong and expected them to simply bow to that?? That feels really arrogant regardless of if he is correct or not because the clans don’t know this?? They’ve worked (as far as I know) to preserve their culture and sure they’ve miss interpreted things from their history but can you really blame them considering everything the elves have gone through?? It just frustrates me that because solas is “right” he’s given a free pass to disrespect lavellans background with little thought to the point it feels cruel like he removes her markings then leaves her without thinking for a moment what the ramifications of that decision means for her… she isn’t a city elf all she had was in that clan and now she cannot return but it’s alright because solas said she should get rid of them so she should disregard them?? the social ramifications for lavellan after their removal are just never something that crosses his mind? It feels selfish in such a cruel way because he put her in a position not even just from removing her vallaslin but literally everything that pushed her to becoming the herald of a religion she doesn’t believe in around people that don’t respect her only to abandon her like idk it just makes me a little upset that Lavellan has to learn and come to terms with all these things Solas tells her about the world but when has he asked her what these things meant to her

[hyperbali]

If you're a Solavellan do not click here lmao

So I've seen that one post going around that's like "people who are shipping Rook and Solas are missing the point, they don't have a deeper connection than he had with Lavellan, Lavellan knew the real Solas"

And I have never seen such obvious cope in my life lmao

Fact of the matter is that they are both a blip in his existence. Solas knew Lavellan for 1-2 years, of course he's going to be more fixated on the romantic/platonic/situationship/whatever that lasted for millennia and literally broke the world, especially when the aftermath is that he feels like he's on such a different level than everyone left that they are pretty much Tranquil to him! This is a thought that he specifically expressed!

And claiming that Wisdom is the real Solas and Pride is not... also misses the point. Solas is Wisdom is Pride. Solas means Pride. At no point in his interactions with either the Inquisitor or Rook is he ever not lying, even just by omission. Neither of them see who or what he is as a whole, both are always operating at a disadvantage based on how much knowledge he's willing to give, and both have the opportunity to genuinely earn his respect.

As genuinely as Solas can get, at any rate.

Bearing that in mind, his chemistry with Rook compared to Lavellan is like a bonfire to a fireplace, in my opinion (bear that in mind oml). Even back in the day, I wanted the opportunity for a rivalmance with him so bad. I wanted to be able to call him out on his shit, to debate with his ideas, to meet him on a level that he was fully unexpecting and he hates that he loves it. Actively HATES it, not just that it makes him sad.

As it is, this "and so the wolf fell in love with the halla" shit is so cringy. Not at all helped by the fact that a romancing Lavellan apparently pined for him for a decade, couldn't do a damn thing to change his mind in the end, and willingly cuts herself off from her life, family, and friends to be a simpering, lovesick sycophant for the rest of her days. Because the Veil is STILL up. She IS dying in a few decades. And all of it will have been pointless.

Canon is a mess, I'm twisting it in other ways regardless, etc. etc. MY POINT IS

Shipping him with another character is not going to somehow make your ship invalid*. You can still make your favourite dolls kiss how you like. Relax about it.

(That last bit is not derogatory, as I am also proudly clanging my dolls together as usual. Just! Relax!! We are all in hell!!!)

*my 'ship and let ship' mantra has an exception and that exception is neve/lucanis. i'm sorry but it was the dumbest possible pairing for either of them and bioware should have let both of their nonromanced pairings be queer

[shoutydwarf]

and i KNOW that this discussion is eventually going to evolve into solavellans/solas lovers coping by making theories on how the titans were the villains somehow. i've already seen it starting - here and there, little throwaway vent posts. shit like "the titans attacked them first" (no they didnt). and they're going to latch onto these hallucinations so fiercely they'll have the audacity to come into other people's spaces and wave it around like it's canon, like how they've done the past 10 years re: solas tearing down the veil where they somehow got the idea that his plan was a good thing. or that one person hallucinating justifications for his racism towards qunari and dwarves.

i gain nothing by predicting this, i also cant stop it, we already got doofuses on twitter with 8k followers romanticizing the genocide for the angle of "solas crafted a body just so he could touch lavellan". i just hope DA is like well and truly dead to me before it begins in earnest

[fenrelmercar]

Imagine scrolling ship critical tag and then being surprised that it is indeed ship critical and then going to bitch and moan about it on X.

Oh, and next time if you have a problem with my content, come and say it to my face instead of circle-jerking it like some insecure bitches, so I can tell you to go fuck yourselves in your faces.

Also, let me make it super clear: I have never engaged with Solavellans in any discussions whatsoever or attacked them in any manner and if they are claiming otherwise, they are lying. I only engage in Dreadrook circles. I don't know why I have to state the obvious.

[inanshalla]

veilguard solavellan is also so boring like imagine building up this relationship for 10 years in your head after trespasser with the passionate glowy eye kiss, screaming after him that she’ll save him, solas being gentler to ease her pain as the mark is consuming her only to have the conclusion be solas mentioning lavellan once, lavellan’s entire character being about her love for someone who’s relationship with another woman is the plot of the whole sequel to the story they were a main character, and when it really came down to it, they weren’t even able to stop solas as it takes another woman to do it, a plain kiss and him not even asking her to come with him she has to insist and whatever trick weekes says after the game has already dropped is entirely irrelevant bc they did not make what he says clear in the game proper so it all seems like damage control