#welcome to the game kin | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nadas-dirthalen · 1 month ago

Text

I Saw Solas's Origin in an Achievement Icon and It Opened My Eyes on 15 Years of Lore

— PART THREE: if you haven't read previous parts, do it now! —

[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ]

Welcome, friends and travelers! I wanted to get some thoughts recorded before Veilguard's release so I could see if I am right about an absolute BOATLOAD of theories I have.

In short: I saw the achievement list when it was released. I have seen the backstory hints for Solas included in said list. AND MY MIND WAS BLOWN.

You have been warned: THIS COLLECTION OF THEORIES INCLUDES SPOILERS FOR EVERY DRAGON AGE GAME AND ALL PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL UP TO AND INCLUDING OCTOBER 18, 2024.

Come sit down with me. Make a nice cup of tea (and hide it from Solas). We've got a lot of unpacking to do.

(this photo isn't the spoiler, I just like it.)

Today's Discussion:

So far, we've covered a few things. We know Solas was "born" from (or manifested from) a branch of raw lyrium while he was still connected to a Titan. We know there were hints toward this from across all three previous games, plus a lot of external media. We know his "birth" was initiated/instigated by Mythal.

We also know that there are quite a lot of hints about memory and forgetting across what we've covered so far, from Cole's dialogue to old elvhen lullabies.

But from here, we must ask ourselves: What ARE the Forgotten Ones? And if Solas really IS Titan-born, what does that say about the rest of everything we know about the world of Thedas and its magic?

Why the Titans are the Forgotten Ones

Fen'Harel Walked Between Both Clans of Gods

The Abyss and the Fade

Lyrium: Titans' Blood, Emerald Waters of the Fade

What IS a Spirit, Then?

Solas's Magic: What Was He Born With?

Solas and Petrification

Solas and "Blood" Magic // The Red Lyrium Idol

What Did Solas Absorb at the End of DA:I?

Why the Titans are the Forgotten Ones

Okay. This, I admit, could have been its own post. There is a LOT to cover with just this topic. I was in the midst of outlining such a post when one of my favourite Dragon Age theorycrafters (girltriesgames) came out with this video, which summarizes every point I'd gave gone into at length. Go watch it, if you want the full deep-dive!

For now, I will summarize some of the video's points:

There were two clans of gods, according to Merrill. The first was the Evanuris, and the Forgotten Gods were the second.

Fen'Harel walked among both clans without fear, and both believed he was one of them.

The Forgotten Ones have been "sealed" in the Abyss, which we know is the deep underground from the Descent DLC and other sources such as the Anvil of the Void.

The Forgotten Ones are cited by Merrill and the World of Thedas books as being at war with the Evanuris, namely Mythal and Elgar'nan being at war with four Forgotten Ones; in the Trespasser DLC, it mentions that the Titans were at war with the Evanuris, and slain by Mythal and Elgar'nan.

The Hissing Wastes features codices from ancient dwarves who fled to the surface to escape a war that was ultimately... forgotten, featuring dragons being used as weapons that slaughtered their kin. Obviously an above-ground enemy!

There are countless mentions of the word "Forgotten" around the Titans and dwarves. The Titans have been forgotten. They do not exist in the Memories of Orzammar. The sleeping Titans have forgotten how to wake up.

Cole makes many mentions of forgotten songs in relation to the sleeping Titans and also to the dwarves. Curiously, he even ties these concepts to the Templars, who employ the same magic (according to Cole).

Fen'Harel Walked Between Both Clans of Gods

Once I knew that Solas is made from lyrium and that the Titans are the Forgotten Ones, everything clicked into place for me. The legends say that Fen'Harel walked between both "clans" of gods because each one believed him to be one of their own. That sentence made less sense to me before, because I wondered: how does an elf fool an entire other clan of gods into believing he belongs to them?

Understanding that the Titans are the Forgotten Ones, famously the clan of gods that the Evanuris (namely Mythal and Elgar'nan) warred with... well, it makes sense now, doesn't it? Solas was able to walk between both clans of gods because he DOES have roots in both. Solas is crafted FROM a Titan. Solas BECAME an Evanuris. The Titan would recognize him as one of its own; the Evanuris accept him as one of their own.

This is backed up even further by a piece of Solas's dialogue in The Threat Remains.

"I have journeyed deep into the Fade in ancient ruins and battlefields to see the dreams of lost civilizations. I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clash to reenact the bloody past of ancient wars both famous and forgotten."

The Titans' existence was struck from Orzammar's Memories. Cole makes endless mentions of forgotten songs, old songs. Beings that are sleeping and don't remember how to wake up. Beings that have forgotten even themselves. Solas refers to dwarves as the severed arm of a once mighty hero.

"Wars both famous and forgotten," therefore, might refer to a war that was famous among the ancient elvhen, but forgotten by the rest of the world. One side takes pride in the mining of lyrium from slain titans. The other is doomed never to know what was lost.

But the question remains: When Solas created the Veil to imprison the Evanuris, what exactly happened to the Titans?

The Abyss and the Fade

To truly understand what happened to the Titans, we must first understand what, exactly, the Veil was making a divide between. We know much of what happened to the Fade: that Solas says it was once a state of nature like the wind, flowing through everything. That now it is mutable and unpredictable, with little in the way of permanence in anything. That it takes the shape of the thoughts and memories of those within it. That magic functions unpredictably within it.

But what about what that meant for the Titans? What happened to them with this split? And, more importantly, what was the Fade in relation to them?

Let's start with what we know about the Titans' domain. Frequently called the Abyss or the Void, the realm of the Titans is below the surface. Yet, in much elvhen literature found in Trespasser, their domain is referred to as the Earth.

I believe, based on the context of those codices, that the Earth and the Abyss are not the same. The Abyss refers to the caverns in the deep underground. The Earth, specifically, is the Titans who live within the Abyss. Earth, in the ancient elvhen, pre-Veil context, may refer to the Titans' bodies—lyrium—while "Pillars of the Earth" refers to the Titans as sentient beings. The Song to Elgar'nan talks about wanting victory over the Earth, capital 'E.'

Though the Chant of Light describes the Void as more a state of being, the ancient elvhen describe it as Andruil's old hunting grounds.

One day Andruil grew tired of hunting mortal men and beasts. She began stalking the Forgotten Ones, wicked things that thrive in the abyss. Yet even a god should not linger there, and each time she entered the Void, Andruil suffered longer and longer periods of madness after returning. Andruil put on armor made of the Void, and all forgot her true face. She made weapons of darkness, and plague ate her lands. She howled things meant to be forgotten, and the other gods became fearful Andruil would hunt them in turn.

The time of Andruil using the Void as her hunting grounds predates the Veil. Overall, we already know much of what this codex implies about the Void: that it is dark, underground, and that there is reason we know of that would send Andruil back with madness (the abundance of raw lyrium and the fact that the Evanuris are mages, plus Andruil's lyrium armor).

What I want to focus on is that the Forgotten Ones were thriving in the Abyss before the Veil went up. They were alive and, ostensibly, able to fight back. They had access to their will and to their consciousness.

That consciousness seems to have disappeared with the creation of the Veil. Let me rephrase.

The Titans lost access to their consciousness with the creation of the Veil. At the same time. And what did the Veil do? What is the SOLE thing it did?

Separated the Fade from the waking world.

A collection of facts, when taken together, lead me to my conclusion about the relationship between the Abyss, the Fade, and the Titans.

The Forgotten Ones (Titans) live in the Abyss

They were conscious and "thriving" before the Veil went up

Cole remarks that they have "forgotten" how to wake up in the time since

No one has memory of the Titans, not even the dwarves

Lyrium is the blood of the Titans

and lyrium grows in the Fade.

Lyrium: Titans' Blood, and the Emerald Waters of the Fade

I think a lot of us (me included) have been thinking about the Fade all wrong. I think a lot of people consider the Fade to be this Other Thing™ that was once a part of the world, and is now separate. Now, I believe differently. I think that the Fade and the Titans were once two pieces of one whole, and creating the Veil effectively sundered all Titans' consciousness from their bodies.

In short: I think the Fade is the Titans' missing consciousness.

That's why I think it is very important not just that Lyrium exists in the Fade, but that it grows there. It implies that the Fade is still alive, just like the Titans are still alive, but asleep.

When Solas says, "I seek... regeneration" in Vows & Vengeance, I think this is what he means: reconnecting these two sundered pieces.

We've always thought as the Fade as the realm of spirits. Those characters who contemplate the Veil being torn down immediately think about how many spirits and demons that might unleash upon Thedas.

But I must ask: If the Fade is the consciousness of sundered Titans, where did the first spirits come from, before the creation of the Veil? What relation could Titans have with spirits?

What IS a Spirit, Then?

I'm sure that I am not alone when I say that my original guess for Solas's origin story is that he was a spirit that took mortal, corporeal shape. We've all heard Cole say, "He did not want a body, but she asked him to come." We all know that the Dread Wolf's six eyes greatly resemble a Pride demon, and we have seen that Solas' Manifestation achievement icon features those same six eyes.

If you're like me, you might've seen that and wondered how exactly this is all related. How can Solas be a spirit of Wisdom turned to Pride if he came from a Titan?

I'm here to tell you: I think those are the same thing.

And the Chant of Light agrees with me.

Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls. From these emerald waters doth life begin anew. Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies Eternity. —Andraste 14:11

Many believe that the well of sorrows and the waters of the Fade must have elemental associations with, well... water. But I'd like to put forth a different interpretation.

Lyrium exists in liquid form, once refined. The Bastion of the Pure in the Descent DLC has a literal underground sea. We know that lyrium is the Titans' blood, growing both in the Abyss and the Fade. We also know that the Fade, domain of spirits, is likely the Titans' sundered consciousness.

The "well of all souls," then, is the same as the "emerald waters." Both of them refer not to water, not to oceans, but to lyrium.

I think every spirit on Thedas, not just the dwarves, came from the Titans originally.

To test the validity of my idea, I then asked myself: what do we know of spirits and their nature?

We know that spirits all boil down to one singular quality: Wisdom, Compassion, Purpose, Love, Justice, etc etc etc.

We know that those qualities can change back and forth from "virtuous" to "demonic" depending on the spirit's own feelings and reactions to the world. The trauma of crossing the Veil or being bound can force Wisdom to become Pride (Solas's personal quest) or Compassion to Rage (Down Among the Dead Men from Tevinter Nights).

Not all spirits are named for "virtues" or "sins." For instance, there are Hunger demons, and hunger is not a sin.

Spirits can be killed outright. When that happens, they may reform, but they are never quite the same when they coalesce again. There are also "ancient spirits" mentioned throughout the franchise, which tells me that not all spirits are the same age. They were not all created at the same time.

Many spirits are mere wisps, without one of those one-word qualities. They must gain power before they take such a shape.

To me, that sounds a lot like how thoughts work.

Our singular thoughts could also be boiled down to singular qualities, if framed in a certain way. For instance, my current craving for food is very much a Hunger thought. My constant joy in reading World of Thedas stems from Curiosity. Terrible traffic conditions inspire fleeting Rage, which changes when I remember my Compassion for other drivers who might be erratic because they're going through an emergency or something traumatic.

People don't remember every single thought they have. The ones that stick with us over time? They remain with us because they are powerful. Stronger memories stick around longer; the rest fade away or become shapeless until we try really hard to remember them again.

But when we do remember things we have forgotten? We never remember them exactly the same, do we? If I remember I thought I had as a child, I have to remember it with the context of my current 30-year-old self. I will never experience the thought exactly as my 5-year-old self did.

As long as I have access to my own consciousness, I will constantly produce new thoughts and memories.

Therefore?

Specifically, I think that all spirits on Thedas are the thoughts of Titans, once either held in lyrium or free to drift through the Fade before the Veil existed. Those spirits may then manifest into a corporeal shape, like Cole does, if they have enough power.

And Solas? Solas is one such thought-spirit, who used to be held in lyrium, who Mythal convinced (or coerced) to take shape.

Which explains a great deal about every type of magic we see him use.

Solas's Magic: What Was He Born With?

Oh, Solas, you beautiful enigma. For so long, we thought of you as an ordinary mage. Then, with the big Fen'Harel reveal and the way you began petrifying people in Trespasser, we thought you were something else.

Mages draw their power from the Fade. It looks like the dwarven magic we're seeing (from Harding, from Valta, from Sandal) draws its power from the Stone, in addition to manipulating it. So what gives? How is Solas able to pull from both schools of magic? Is he a mage? Is he kin with the dwarves?

Now, with all the knowledge we've gained through one singular achievement icon jpeg, I understand: you are both, and you are neither.

We must remember that all ancient elvhen are born in a pre-Veil era. With the knowledge we have, that means an era when the Titans were not sundered from their thoughts, and all magic in the world was one thing. If all spirits are the thoughts of Titans made manifest (either as living concepts or as corporeal beings) and the Fade is just one part of Titans' whole existence, then a world without the Veil is a world where we don't need to think of those magics as two separate things.

Rather, they are both magic, but opposing schools of the same magic. When we think of the four elements here in OUR world, we think of earth and air as opposites—but in a lot of media, magic users have access to both. Often, they are weak to each other, one cancelling out the other.

We see this laid out more clearly in this codex from the Vir Dirthara.

"The unchanging world is delicate: spells of power invite disaster and annihilation. The unchanging world is stubborn: the pull of the earth fiercely resists making fire run like water or stone rise like mist. The unchanging world rings with its own harmony. Listen with fearless hearts, and great works will unfold."

This codex is actively encouraging the magic users of ancient elvhen (AKA, all people from that time) to listen with fearless hearts to the "unchanging world" to exert will over the "pull of the earth." They're not saying to avoid the Titans, or to dominate them with an abundance of their own (Fade) magic. By tapping into the Titans' rhythm, even the magic of the Fade is embellished. Made stronger.

To be alive in that time is to be able to wield both magics interchangeably—but just like Aang in Avatar: the Last Airbender, the pull of the earth is a notoriously difficult thing for "air" (Fade) magic-users to grasp, and vice versa.

(A tiny aside: I believe these discoveries about spirits and magic teach us the distinction between elven and elvhen. The latter translates to "spirit-soul," loosely—the spirits that came out of the Titans. I believe elven refers to the corporeal descendants of those elvhen that sexually reproduced.)

Solas and Petrification

Many of us speculated for a long, long time that Solas's ability to petrify people—an ability associated with Sandal and Harding—was something he took from a dwarven or Titan-aligned source. People speculated that Urthemiel, the archdemon, must be somehow connected to the magic of the Stone.

I have a different theory: Solas has always had this capability, but the power he absorbed from Mythal is what has allowed him to once again perform the magic of the Stone from whence he came.

Maybe utilizing both magics to such a powerful degree (remember his Mind Blast from Trespasser?) requires that a mage be more powerful than most, carrying two "sects" of magic within them and using both in such a great and terrible capacity (like how the Avatar is more powerful than other benders, able to carry multiple elements because of bonding with the spirit of Raava, to continue with my previous example).

Solas and "Blood" Magic // The Red Lyrium Idol

I'll preface this by saying: no, I have no idea why Solas has changed his tune about blood magic in DA:tV. I hope to find out in five days!

I do want to suggest that, for Solas, blood magic might mean something different than it does for everyone else. Solas's blood, while he has taken a corporeal shape almost identical to any other elven person, may not be the same chemical make as the blood of mortals. That might explain why he has not experimented with it much during the time of Inquisition, and might explain why he does not want to use his own blood in DA:tV.

Instead, his blood might be closer to lyrium than we expected. And the red lyrium idol might be HIS idol.

Some of you might remember that way back in part 1, I noted that a hint for Solas's origin from previous games and external media is that, in Tevinter Nights, the Dread Wolf refers to the red lyrium idol as "my idol" before slaying the Mortalitasi trying to perform a blood magic ritual with it. It confused me, for a long time, why the Dread Wolf (the big wolf form, not necessarily one with Solas) would refer to the idol as "my idol" before actually retrieving it to keep. The explanation seems simple: it was his first.

This makes me wonder, given everything we know, if the idol first belonged to the Dread Wolf because it is made from the Dread Wolf's blood. Since the Dread Wolf is a piece of a Titan, that would make its blood likely at least related to lyrium, right?

Many have also speculated that Solas's ritual dagger, which gets passed on to Rook, is made from a purified/reforged red lyrium idol. Given the blood connection between Rook and Solas, it makes sense to me that if the dagger is indeed made from the blood of the Dread Wolf (and/or Solas), that is why Rook has access to its abilities.

What Did Solas Absorb at the End of DA:I?

I cannot for the life of me find a well-cropped image, but this post on Reddit talks about a designer note from the post-credits scene of DA:I between Solas and Flemeth. Namely that Solas does not take Mythal's soul when he absorbs power from her. Before he absorbs that power, Mythal passes her soul on to Morrigan.

While David Gaider had previously advised fans to not necessarily take this as canon, it seems to be proving true in Morrigan's design change, featuring Flemeth's crown.

That means there are two things Solas may have still absorbed from Mythal, since her soul was already "spoken for."

Raw power

The soul of Urthemiel, the archdragon slain in Origins. This is true in every world state with Kieran, but I would wager that Urthemiel's soul belongs with Mythal in every world state, since Flemeth said she had an "appointment to keep" in the prologue of DA2, which is why she did not travel with Hawke. My guess is she went to Denerim, poking at the remains of the slain archdemon until, 10 years later in Inquisition, she was in possession of Urthemiel's soul no matter what.

We know, however, that archdemons are sundered pieces of the Evanuris. We've been able to suspect this since Inquisition, where we see Corypheus's archdemon is in possession of a piece of his soul and is therefore the secret to his immortality.

I don't think either of this gave Solas access to any new spells. Rather, I think either one (or both!) might have granted him the power necessary to access spells he already knows from both Fade magic and Stone magic.

However, I'd like to touch on just one thing before this post concludes.

I believe that Urthemiel is June's archdemon. The Chant of Light references an Architect of Beauty, just as it references Corypheus, the Conductor of Silence. These are high priests of the so-called "Old Gods," which were revealed as archdemons when Dumat appeared during the First Blight. Corypheus was the high priest of Dumat, the old god of Silence.

I believe the word Architect being used as the title for the high priest of Urthemiel is indicative of the Evanuris that Urthemiel belongs to. There is one Evanuris known for craftsmanship: June, who we know nothing about.

The reason I mention this is that, if nothing else, June's abilities may have allowed Solas to "purify" and shape the red lyrium idol into his ritual dagger that we see in Veilguard.

In conclusion: I believe Solas has always had access to the Stone, but it would certainly be interesting to see if each Evanuris has their own suite of magical abilities, potentially due to the Titan from which some of them originated (more on THAT in a later post, stay tuned!).

If you read this far, THANK YOU, as always! The collective hype of everyone reading and sharing these is making me all the more excited for Veilguard.

Keep an eye out for the next instalment in this series: What the Chant of Light teaches us about Solas, Mythal, and the Evanuris at large.

#dragon age #veilguard spoilers #dragon age: the veilguard spoilers #datv spoilers #da4 spoilers #dragon age: the veilguard #da:tv #da4 #da:v #dragon age theory #dragon age meta #solas #dragon age solas

94 notes · View notes