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buttsonthebeach · 6 years

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*bangs fists on the table* I need a Hamilton solas meta! Have you done this and I missed it? I think it’s such a cool idea and you’ve done some cool stuff with the idea 💕

MY FRIEND.

Thank you for giving me the excuse to do the post I have wanted to do forever and ever and ever. (It got really long. I’m sorry?)

I was deep in the depths of my Hamilton obsession (which, like Solavellan hell, is eternal) when I first played Inquisition, and at first I thought it was just the fact that I was obsessed with both that made me see so many parallels, but the more I have thought about it, the more I have thought that there are truly some fascinating connections between the two “main” characters in the musical (Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr) and our favorite unwashed apostate hobo, as well as the overall plot of Inquisition.

For starters, who do you think said something along these lines: I can totally fix this mistake by making a different, bigger mistake. (Okay, this one isn’t a direct quote, but listen to the song “Hurricane” and tell me it isn’t what Hamilton is saying.)

Or this: Death doesn’t discriminate / Between the sinners and the saints/ It takes and it takes and it takes / And history obliterates / Every picture it paints / It paints me in all my mistakes

Sound eerily familiar?

So, the meta that has guided my characterization of Solas pretty much since I started writing him is this: Solas was an Alexander Hamilton who lived long enough to see himself become an Aaron Burr, and if he has any hope of redemption, it lies in him returning to those Hamiltonian sides of himself.

When you first meet Hamilton in the musical, he is the “young scrappy and hungry” revolutionary who talks too much and cares even more. To me, this is the perfect analog to Solas in his early days in Elvhenan. As he tells Blackwall, he was once “cocky and hot-blooded,” just as Hamilton is when he first arrives in America. We know he was highly idealistic, just as Hamilton is, and it wouldn’t shock me to find out he also had something to prove. I doubt he was a member of Elvhenan’s ruling class, at least not to start out. I also love that both young Hamilton and Solas are anti-slavery, a position that was revolutionary in both of their societies at the time.

Next, Hamilton and Solas both get wrapped up in a war, and are handpicked by a famous general to be their “right hand man” - in Hamilton’s case, Washington’s - in Solas’s case, Mythal’s. I tend to believe that Mythal was not Solas’s lover, but instead a trusted mentor and friend, or even a mother figure, just as Washingotn becomes a complex father figure for Hamilton. I also tend to believe that Solas may have struggled to overcome his cocky and hot-blooded nature despite his increasing social status and political power, just as Hamilton does.

(Now, this is where we skip a big chunk of the musical - mainly the romance with Eliza - but I’ll get back to that.)

Like Hamilton, Solas is an incredible talent, but this talent begins to sow the seeds of their undoing. Hamilton is an incredible legal and financial mind who writes “financial systems into existence” the same way that Solas creates the Veil, which was equally as unprecedented. But, even as they reach the peak in their careers, they also approach their downfall - Hamilton because of his affair with Maria Reynolds, and Solas because of his inability to accept Mythal’s betrayal and death. (Although Solas’s downfall also seems to be connected to his deeply held ideals, and we don’t have the full story there yet.)

Both men take drastic actions that they believe will fix this - Hamilton with the “Reynolds Pamphlet” confessing to the affair before anyone can use it against him, and Solas with the creation of the Veil. Both actions fix part of the problem, but lead to a ripple of unintended consequences (Hamilton’s estrangement from his beloved wife and loss of his political career, and Solas’s descent into uthenera, and the end of Thedas as he knew it).

Here is where they diverge - Hamilton’s downward spiral leads more or less to the death of his son, his reconciliation with Eliza, and then to his death in a duel. But while Solas seemingly dies - he also wakes up thousands of years later in a world he barely recognizes.

Enter Aaron Burr.

Burr already has status, wealth, power, knowledge - but he is deeply alone, saying that “everyone who loves me has died,” and deeply obsessed with his legacy. Sound like Solas, post-elevation to “godhood” and uthenera? Rather than choosing to stand for something, Burr wants to “talk less and smile more” and always seeks to take actions that lead to his own advancement, rather than choosing his actions based on his ideals. To me, this rings so much of Solas in his early Inquisition days. He actively hides behind a mask, he deceives, he takes actions that benefit his agenda and no one else’s (like giving the orb to Corypheus). Burr, unlike Hamilton, does not cultivate a close group of friends, and instead stands alone, much like Solas.

The thing is, in my mind, Solas never slips fully into being Burr - we still always get glimpses of the Hamilton underneath, or of Burr’s own softer side. (One great thing about this musical is that Burr is never fully a villain, just as I would argue that Solas is not fully a villain.) Burr also falls in love, also becomes a father, also has doubts and insecurities. Solas still approves when you help people, still approves of the Inquisitor seeking the understand the world around them better even as he plans to destroy that world.

Now, enter Eliza/Lavellan. (See, I said we’d come back to it!)

Of course, this is where the parallels only exist if you play your game this way. I can’t necessarily say that this is true of all Lavellans, or of worldstates where Solas does not have a romance. But, I do think it has some great parallels to any worldstate where Solas is romanced, even if they aren’t perfect.

Eliza is in awe of Hamilton, saying that there’s “nothing that [his] mind can’t do,” and describing how her love for him has her “helpless,” a word that feels innocent enough in the throes of young love, but still contains the seed of future heartbreak. She is a grounding force for Hamilton, constantly seeking to draw him back to the real, to the now, and out of his world of grand ideals. “That Would Be Enough” will forever be one of my all-time favorite Solavellan songs for that reason. I mean, look at this:

Oh, let me be apart of the narrative

In the story they will write someday

Let this moment be the first chapter

Where you decide to stay

And I could be enough

And we could be enough

That would be enough

(Again, the characterization of your Lavellan might not fall in line with this, but to me it captures so much of the wistfulness that I see in so much Solavellan.)

But, here’s where I see another parallel - Lavellan is also a source of temptation for Solas, pulling him away from his true purpose and plans. She is not only his Eliza, but his Maria Reynolds. “Say No To This” was actually the first song that made me sit up and go “holy shit, this is such a Solas song.” I mean, come on:

Lord, show me how to say no to this

I don’t know how to say no to this

But my god she looks so helpless

And her body’s saying hell yes

I see you, Mr. I-can’t-stop-myself-from-kissing-Lavellan-even-when-I-know-it’s-a-bad-idea. (Also, look at Lin-Manuel Miranda flawlessly bringing the word “helpless” back, this time with a different woman, to draw his own parallels between Eliza and Maria. Damn, he’s good.)

And unfortunately, just as Eliza and Hamilton’s love story has a tragic ending, Solavellan does too.

That euphoric helplessness Eliza feels when she first falls in love with Hamilton turns to actual helplessness as he has an affair, tells the whole world about it, indirectly gets their eldest son killed, and then loses his own life. That second arc in their story reminds me so much of how Solavellan ends. “Burn” will forever be one of my favorite Lavellan songs for Trespasser, as she bitterly describes how Hamilton’s ideals and legacy mattered more to him than his family - just as Solas’s ideals and beliefs ultimately matter more to him than his love for Lavellan.

But.

There is a beautiful, heartbreaking little song called “It’s Quiet Uptown” that gives me the tiniest bit of hope for Solas, and for Solavellan.

Eliza and Hamilton do reconcile before his death.

They do find a way through something as “unimaginable” as losing a child - through “moments when [they’re] in so deep / it feels easier to just swim down.” It takes Hamilton stepping up, acknowledging that everything he has done is wrong, that he still loves Eliza, and that he would be happy if he can just stay by her side. He owns up, and then he gives Eliza the choice to forgive him or not.

If we could have a moment like that - a moment where Solas finds his way back to Lavellan, where he acknowledges his faults and problems and asks for forgiveness, with no action on her part - if he truly wants to be redeemed, as Hamilton does in that moment - then I think we too could get that refrain of “forgiveness / can you imagine?”

I can’t think of a better ending. But it has to come from Solas, just as it has to come from Hamilton himself.

And, then, you know, he has to not give in to the other side of his nature and end up dead in a duel, as Hamilton does.

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk about Hamilton and Dragon Age, I have 500000 more parallels in mind, and you can see most of them in The World Turned Upside Down, my Inquisition retelling paired with Hamilton songs, although I also have fun drawing parallels in my other fics. I have accepted my place in the deepest pits of Hamilton and Solavellan hell. I’ll be here forever and ever!

#solas meta #hamilton x dragon age #listen #i could probably write another 50000 words on how this has informed my other characterizations #like dorian as an angelica to a romanced lavellan #how my own ellana is eliza and maria and george washington #how so many songs directly relate to the inquisitor's arc #asojvglH #I LOVE THIS MUSICAL AND THIS FANDOM

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