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thekingofwinterblog · 8 months

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You know what the most annoying thing about the Twists regarding the Elves in Inquisition was?

That all the twists, if taken on their own, would make for a really good story.

The reveals about Solas backstory and how him and his fellow God Kings rose, became decadent, warred with each other and fell, setting the stage for their transformation into the Old Gods is frankly speaking, some of the best lore that Dragon Age ever had, and lines up really well with how the world is structured while explaining how the Old Gods came to be, how the elves fell, and so on.

That the tevinter imperium when it conquered the nation of Arlathan was not the great imperial state lead by mighty mages their descendants liked to think they were, but instead a bunch of weaklings that needed years and years to take on one, measly city-state that had utterly obliterated itself in civil war.

There is so much great stuff here.

So where did it all go wrong?

The answer, is of course execution.

Inquisition overall is a great game... But man did it drop the ball so hard with the Elves that it's pretty much hard to believe that they will be able to tell a nuanced story about them in Dread Wolf.

Everything from the companions, to the world itself as the game presents , to retcons regarding mages that's there, not to tell a story about the elves, but to try and make the Templar vs mage conflict grey.

Starting with the companions, we have a great example of coming so, so close to greatness... and then falling right on it's face.

The game has two Elf companions, solas and Sera... and the contrast between them really illustrates the big picture with how incapable Inquisition is with trying to tell a nuanced picture with the elves.

Solas as a character is perfect. Love him or hate him, he is a fully fleshed out character with very clear, defined, understandable motives that makes sense to him.

And most importantly of all, his way of viewing the world is WRONG. The game acknowledges that he is wrong.

The entire story of where dragon age 4 is heading, is all about how the Dread wolf, for all his knowledge and intelligence and genuine virtues, is at the end of the day, a monster, who is willing to see the world burn to restore the Elves magic and immortality.

He is a racist, he is bigoted, and ultimately misguided. Despite all his development with the inquisitor, he does not manage to grow enough as a person that he manages to abandon his genocidal goals. And the game does not pretend othervise.

That is what makes the story of Solas rise to become the big villain of the sequel great.

There is no disconnect between the story, the characters, or the way the game wants us to view solas.

Solas is far, far more bigoted and close-minded than any of the dalish he so despises, and the game ultimately does not pretend othervise.

Which brings us to the opposite end of the elf spectrum with Sera.

Sera is a very disliked character by a lot of people, but by dalish and elf players/fans more than most.

Just like Solas, she is bigoted, racist, and ultimately misguided in her hatred of her fellow elves, whether they be city elves, or Dalish, or ancient elves.

And that frankly, would not be a problem if the game acknowledged that fact. If her character arc was about it, and either how she could not overcome her own issues, or actually managed to grow beyond them, she could have been a great character.

The problem is the fact that the game is not willing to handle this fact head on. Its not willing to come out and portray Sera as just as bigoted against her own kind as Solas is, and to treat this as a flaw.

Instead the game treats her as if her biggest flaw is that she's annoying, and not the fact that in a game that is in many ways about setting up the rise of the dread wolf, she is just as bad as Solas, just from a different origin point.

Sera should have been a mirror to Solas, both from a story point, as well as a thematic one, but unfortunately she is not.

Hell, she doesn't really overcome her racism either. The closest she comes to doing so, is basically burning out on hating the dalish and other elves in trespasser, not admitting she was actually wrong to hate them so much in the first place.

The game does not treat Sera's disdain for other elves and their culture as a problem, and it does not give a dalish inquisitor the option to tell her to go fuck herself on the topic that you are given with Solas if you really desire to do so.

You are given the option of kicking her out of the inquisition, but not actually stand up for the dalish or even city elves the way the player could against Morrigan's flemeth raised cruelty in origins, anders and Fenris obsessions with, and hatred for templars/mages in da2, or solas ideals in inquisition.

And thats a problem that really illustrates the bigger issue with the way Inquisition took what could have been a great story about the Elves and the reveals about their anceators, and frankly ruined it.

The dalish and city elvea were very thouroughly fleshed in both Origins, Awakening and DA2.

However, city elves largely managed to avoid being utterly destroyed by the narrative the way the Dalish were, for the simple reason that outside briala, we don't get much if any interaction with them at all, making them essentially a non show foe the game for the most part. They don't get a city elf inquisitor, and so we have no point of view to look at them from a pc perspective.

They got off much better than the dalish though.

Starting off with the arguably single worst thing in all of DAI is the retcon that Dalish clans, if there is more than two mages in a clan, sends off the third one alone in the wilderness to fend for themselves. This goes against absolutely everything that has ever been established about the Dalish, and worst of all, wasn't even an addition meant to demonize the dalish, instead being an addition to handwave away the obvious fact that the Dalish had a much better system than the human circles when it came to magic... Which in turn was made irrelevant by the fact the Avvar was later shown to have a much better and more effective solution to the possession question anyway.

It was, in essence, a pointless retcon, that overall only made the dalish look bad, and has now opened the door for the idea that most dalish clans acts like this, and will be portrayed so in future games.

Its bad, but unfortunately it was only the start.

The game goes out of its way to portray absolutely every single person who critices the dalish as having a point, that they brought on their own downfalls, even as they are being the most imperialistic, racist assholes imaginable, while the dalish inquisitor can only offer a token of defence for his people, a far cry from way origins allowed you to handle the same situation wheter your main ethnicity was ferelden, mage, city elf, dalish, casteless or dwarven noble.

But nowhere is it worse than the way the game handles the fall of the dales.

Now the actual lore you learn about it, is not bad. At all. I know some complain that the reveals that ameridan(and presumably other elves) worshipped both the creators and the maker, as well as the fact that the dalish unfortunately did have a bad relationahip with the rest of the world, in particular orlais, is bad storytelling, but i firmly disagree.

No the problem is the execution.

Ameridan is not wrong when he says that The Dales should not have distanced itself from the rest of the world, especially not in the face of a blight... But the Dales of his era were in turn not wrong when they argued that the Orlesians were little better than the imperium, and they would be completely right.

This is not a grey issue, its a grey and black issue.

Orlais was, and still is an evil, expansionist empire with 99% of its population living as serfs, that can be raped and beaten at will, little better than slaves.

The dales were the morally right side of the exalted march on the dales. No amount of new lore we learned in inquisition has changed that fact. We simply get the details fleshed out a bit more to add context.

Orlais was going to invade and enslave the elves anyway, as they proved through their actions against all their other, very much fellow Adrastian neighbors.

The problem is that you are not allowed to express this kind of point of view and stick to it like steel.

The characters you meet having the bigoted opinion that the dales ultimately brought on their own fate is NOT a bad thing in and out of itself... the problem is that you are not allowed to challenge that opinion the way you could challenge Lelliana's view of the dalish in origins, or the way you could tell both Anders and fenris to go fuck themselves on their extremist opinions all through da2, and ending that fuck you by killing them in the endgame.

And thats a real shame, because just looking at characters like cassandra's character development through Inquisition, you could easily have made a really compelling narrative put of a dalish inquisitor who stuck by his or her principles, and actually challenged the people they met's racist views on the dalish the way you could in origins, just with a more fleshed out and(unfortunately something way too many people just cannot emote to a character withouth) an actual voice to raise those arguments with.

I do genuinely like Inquisition, and i think it's overall a much better game than DA2... but man did they drop the ball with the elves so hard.

I feel so sorry for anyone who really got invested in the elves as their favorites factions, and i honestly don't think the elves will be handled particularly well in Dread wolf, especially as the only Dalish we are likely to see fleshed out will be the villains fighting for Solas.

#dragon age #dragon age origins #dragon age inquisition #elvhen #elves #dalish #the dales #city elves #solas #sera #meta #dread wolf

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lairofdragonagelore · 1 year

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Solas sharing Lore - Part 1

This post is focused on what Solas says about the lore of the world of DA series. It's not about Solas as a character [although I would try to explore his nature as a way to understand the nature of the Elvhen and the spirits]. Since Solas is one of the living elvhen who knows the truth of what happened with the Evanuris and the Tevinter expansion after the fall of Arlathan, I consider his words one of the most valuable ones in the series. He does not lie, but omits what he doesn't want to speak about or adds technicalities that make his statements true yet misleading if we don’t pay attention to the context. Unlike Flemeth, he speaks with less riddles, so I considered worth listing all the knowledge he shared with the Inquisitor in order to have a reliable information of how “the world” of Thedas truly works.

The list of topics related to the lore shared by Solas is

Dreamers and their powers

The Elvhenan and the Dalish

The Demon/Spirit Nature

Solas’ Personal quest [deeply related to Spirit’s nature and his own]

Solas’ nature

The Fade and the Veil

Magic

The Orb

The Evanuris and worshipping

Organisations/Institutions/Empires

The Blight and the Grey Wardens

Maker

Miscellaneous Knowledge

Trespasser Revelations

Solas sharing Lore: Part 1 - Part 2

Dreamers and their powers

Sommniari or Dreamers can sleep close to a ruin which has endured time, or battlefields that had been steeped in death, they attract spirits and it will help a dreamer to see the past of that place.

Solas claims to be able to walk “deep into the Fade” [which reminds me the codex The Deepest Fade and Walking the Fade: Frozen Moments]. The deepest Fade is, potentially, the place where the Forbidden Ones were exiled. It’s not clear how much literally he means “deep into the Fade”.

It's important to set wards when entering the Fade through dreams [we saw this with Felassan in The Masked Empire]

Solas claims that seeing those pieces of the past make him thrill, even though I suspect it is for different reasons than mere enthusiasm, they were part of his living past, one he yearns deeply.

I’m not so sure if I should catalogue this information as part of the dreamer’s power, but we know by all what Marethari said in Feynriel - Somniari and Fade, a dreamer can use the power of the Fade in a similar way as it’s described by rift mages.

We learnt in Solas’ personal quest that tea and blood magic interfere with the Dreamer’s ability of entering and walking in the Fade.

The Elvhen and the Dalish

During the first minutes of the game, Solas will share with us that he was attacked by Dalish when he tried to question the Keeper's knowledge of their gods and customs. This means that he tried to approach the People, these mortal elves that are so different to the Elvhenan, and tried to share his knowledge of the past, being rejected by them, and suffering what the game has subtly called the Dalish Pride. It’s quite an irony that the group that wants to treasure the old ways rejects the one who lived them in his bones.

Solas insists that Dalish Tales are misheard stories that were repeated wrongly thousand of times. This line is the main reason why I do not trust Dalish Tales for any kind of analysis. Solas assures us many times that, despite having some distant resemblance or detail to something that has happened in the past, they are mostly wrong.

He emphasise that the Dalish try to remember Halamshiral, not the Elvhenan time. Halamshiral was a time where the Dalish tried to recreate the Elvhenan empire, but they ended up accommodating and changing a lot of their own tales due to the influence of the Andrastian faith [as we see in Emerald Graves: Din'an Hanin].

The original [true] elven Empire was called Elvhenan, and Arlathan was its greatest city. He does not say what potential main god may have been central in it [we learnt that elvhenan cities seem to have a Temple in honour of one of the Evanuris around which the city develops, The Temple of Mythal].

Arlathan was made of spires of crystal twining through the branches of trees and of palaces floating in the skies. Elves [he makes the subtle detail of calling them beings, maybe because these elves were more elven-spirit] were immortal and magic was natural in this world. It may imply that, since magic was natural, all elvhenan had some degree of magical power.

Solas: The Dalish remember fragments of fragments, but that is more than most.

Solas: It is a shame, Sera, that you were denied an elven life. Even one as patchwork as the Dalish interpretation.

The Dalish lifestyle, separated in clans, developed a cultural diversification of the Dalish. Some clans are more bandit-oriented, others are more mercantile, and others disappeared into the forest [this is probably an allusion to the Dalish living in Tirashan; which seem to be quite a curious clan according the tabletop corebook of DA]. This implies that the Dalish, the “holders of the ancient true knowledge”, have followed a path that inevitably causes diversification and inaccuracy in the lore they want to keep, and this is even worse if we think they lore is usually kept orally, a form of transmission of knowledge very fragile to loss and modifications over time.

He is convinced that Dalish only hold fragments of an already fragmented History. We later discover in the game that the Dalish have been embracing a lot of slavery icons thinking it was part of their cultural history, which ironically, it is. The “old ways” was a lot about slavery and power of the Evanuris and noble over the less powerful elvhen: The People.

If we have low approval and kill Abelas’ people, Solas angrily says that the Inquisitor has destroyed the few “true elves” that were left. So, Solas is totally convinced that City elves and Dalish are not true elves. We see this same attitude with Abelas when he meets the elven Inquisitor, and it’s also believed by Felassan in the The Masked Empire. The only ancient “elvhen” who sees the Dalish as The People is Flemeth/Mythal, who has been “changed”, according her own words, due to her death and the suffering of betrayal [check “The Fade - Flemeth: Part 2″].

With low approval, he claims that the only way he can save the “elves” is to bring down the Veil, bring the Fade into the Waking World, and reshape reality, which is, ironically, exactly what he plans to do.

In Din'an Hanin, when we interact with a statue of an Emerald Knights, Solas says

Solas: The Emerald Knights. They once patrolled the borders of the Dales, protecting the Elven people. The Dalish saw them as romantic heroes. The Chantry called them ruthless butchers. I suspect both sides have some element of truth.

This reinforces the idea that he knows that situations are greyer than what the groups tend to believe.Especially when it comes to Dalish.

The Demon/Spirit nature

Solas is against the oversimplified explanations of spirits and demons made by the Chantry. The distinction he does between both is that demons are spirits that wish to join the living but the wish "went wrong".

In a world separated by the Veil, it's not possible coexistence between living creatures and spirits. But in a world without Veil, this is possible. [In fact, we saw this coexistence in Vir Dirthara: Attentive Listeners]. My personal speculation about why he says this is probably because most spirits that cross the Veil get extremely confused with the unchangeable nature of the Waking World and some twist into demons as this world makes no sense for them and they try to adapt to it but fail, making impossible to execute their purpose. We see that only through shape they can adapt a bit: Justice took Kristoff’s body in the beginning, and Cole created his own body reflecting the original Cole.

The presence of the Veil makes difficult true understanding between living creatures and spirits.

Solas has travelled and made lasting friendships with spirits of wisdom [who shared knowledge with him], and spirits of Purpose [helped him search].

These benevolent spirits don't seek the living world because they can't survive the exposure to the people. Wisdom and Purpose are easily twisted into Pride and Desire.

Solas explains that the reflective nature of the Fade makes the spirits try to reflect what the living creatures think they are. So spirits reflect all the time the intention that others want from them. In Solas’ personal quest we saw this clearly: If a person wants a fighter from a spirit of wisdom, the spirit reflects this expectation and ends up turning into a “demon” because it goes against its purpose of learning and teaching. Instead, if the person reinforces the wisdom, expecting from that spirit to teach them, the spirit becomes stronger in its own purpose and can exist more comfortable in this world. This is also confirmed by the Avvar, whose whole lifestyle is supported by their interaction with good spirits.

This lore makes the Chantry as the main cause of corruption of spirits through their teachings: they tend to teach that anything non-living is a demon, and a gentle spirit may end-up feeling the compulsion of becoming a demon just because the living are expecting that from it. We can see how terribly wrong the Chantry is, and what a deep understanding of the spiritual world the “savage” Avvar have in contrast.

If one understands the nature of the spirit and reinforces their nature, the spirit remains as a friend.

Solas brings here an interesting philosophical discussion about the nature of a “person”, making us remember another we had with Owain, the Tranquil mage of the Circle of Magi in DAO. The reasoning is the following: spirits are bound to their nature and purpose and not their shape, as it happens with people, hence they are people too. It’s explicitly said that the nature of the spirits may change depending on its contact with people [this contact is what can make them demons or stronger in their own purpose]. This concept brings us a lot of potential explanations about Mythal’s cryptic lines about she being changed and different to the embodiment of motherhood she used to be when you, as an elf, asks Flemeth why Myhtal was silent to the prayers of the People [The Fade - Flemeth: Part 2] . I think it’s clear that Mythal’s has twisted her role and nature after her death. In fact, she may have changed it even previous to that event, when she started to impart justice in the name of Elgar’nan [The Judgment of Mythal, then she ended up being a goddess of Revenge before her death: Arbor Wilds: Altar of Mythal,].

Solas says that anyone who can dream can make friends with these spirits if their natures are respected [this would explain why the Avvar mages seem to do so well with their willingly possessions, I really can’t stress enough how amazing and admirable are the Avvar in the way they see the world and treat their mages. Like… if the Chantry says that free mages always end up as Tevinter, they truly never saw the Avvar. They are probably the only humans who “got it right”.]

Solas defends the idea that spirits are people, despite not having a form as "we understand it". This brings to our mind several Ancient Elven codices from Vir Dirthara, where shape doesn't exist truly. One in particular is Vir Dirthara: Birds of Fancy where two spirits make love in the most amorphous way ever. So, it’s clear that in Elvhenan society, shape did not exist, and the personhood was given by the interactions with others and the personal purposes that each of them had. As an inference, we can assume that the basic sexuality in the Elvhenan society, if it existed, was pansexual since shape is always an ambiguous amorphous thing.

In Banter we have a reinforcement of all this information:

Cole: I didn't know there were spirits of wisdom. Solas: There are few. Spirits form as a reflection of this world and its passions. We will never lack for spirits of rage, or hunger, or desire. The world gives them plenty to mirror. The gentler spirits are far more rare. We can ill afford the loss of even one spirit of wisdom, or faith...Or compassion. Cole: I will try not to die. Solas: Do that, please.

Solas says that there are few spirits of wisdom because Thedas has little desire to learn and teach, instead, there are many spirits of rage, hunger, and desire, because that’s all what Thedas is filled with. The gentle spirits are rarer, specially, compassion, faith, and wisdom.

Solas: How go your attempts to ease the pain of those at Skyhold, Cole? Cole: I made the scullery maid stop crying and one of the boys in the stable is happier. Some of the servants are angry. My help makes work for them. Do you want me to stop? Solas: No. You exist to help others. You are kindness, compassion, caring. If you stop giving comfort, you would twist into something else, as you did before I suspect. Cole: Yes. I will not be that again. Solas: Good. Never forget your purpose. It is a noble one, even if this world does not understand

Here, we have a reinforcement of the vital importance of letting the spirits keep on their purpose, otherwise they twist into something else. Cole, however, is special. We know we can humanise him and in any case, he will evolve into something different but not demonic. I’m going to talk more about his case when talking about “Solas’ Nature”.

This concept is reinforced again in Crestwood when we meet the spirit of Command.

Cassandra: Solas, I am sorry about your... friend. Solas: Thank you. Cassandra: I knew demons and spirits were similar, but I did not know one could become the other so easily. Not similar, Seeker. The same. The Chantry sees black and white, but nature is, and always has been, grey. A spirit is a purpose. A demon is that purpose perverted. Cassandra: That might be true with a spirit of compassion, but what is the purpose of a hunger demon? Solas: Survival. Satiation. The pleasure of taste, of feeding. True hunger, however, is much darker. Think of all those who starve in this world. Mankind has itself to blame for the existence of demons.

We learn in this banter many things:

Seekers, and by extension Templars, had no idea that demons and spirits are the same but just a twist or corruption is what makes the difference.

Solas reinforces, once again, the idea that spirits and demons are the same.

Nature is grey, never black and white, no matter how much the Chantry wants it to be.

What Thedas produces is what the spirits reflect, and since Thedas is currently dominated by humans and their perception of the world, Mankind has a lot of blame in the existence of demons.

Cassandra: I had not considered how fighting in our world might affect the Fade. Is it always thus, Solas? Solas: It is worse this time, with the Breach pulling spirits through against their will... But, yes. Every war, no matter how just, leads to hunger and rage... and so come the demons. Cassandra: It is said that generals should avoid fighting in the same battlefield too many times... Solas: The deaths, the rage - all of it weakens the Veil. But nothing is ever said of the effect war has upon the world of spirits, what we might be doing to them. Every war has unintended victims. All too many go unnoticed.

Solas keeps reinforcing the idea that what happens in Thedas is reflected later in the Fade and in the spirits.

Dorian: Do you use spirits as servants, Solas? You'd have no trouble capturing them. Solas: No. They are intelligent, living creatures. Binding them against their will is reprehensible.

Here we can see how Solas sees spirits as people, and this comment is probably the reason why some frictions between Solas and Dorian can be seen later.

Blackwall: Do you have any advice for fighting demons, Solas? Solas: Survive the first thirty heartbeats, and you'll have already won. Blackwall: So I should try not to die? Helpful. Solas: I mean that demons are rarely intelligent enough to change their tactics. If you focus on defending yourself, you will see the full range of their abilities within the first thirty heartbeats. By then, you should be able to find a weakness and exploit it. Blackwall: Ahh, that is helpful! I will try to remember that. Solas: Also, try not to die.

Solas seems to claim that demons rarely change their tactics. Probably this is based on the most emotional demons, such as Rage or Hunger. I have my doubts when it comes to the Pride demons, who are considered the most powerful ones among the demons and the most cunning too [not by chance the book Tevinter Nights .

Cole: Is there a way to save more spirits, Solas? Solas: Not until the Veil is healed. The rifts draw spirits through, and the shock makes demons of them. Cole: Pushing through makes you be yourself. You can hold onto the you. Being pulled through means you don't have enough you. You become what batters you, bruises your being. Solas: Yes, exactly. Deliberately crossing the Veil requires that a spirit form will, personality. That concept of self gives a spirit the chance to maintain its nature. Wrenched into this world unwillingly by the rifts, spirits suffer the same fate as my friend. Cole: Then we will help them.

This is something quite interesting lore-wise. It says that the only spirits that can pass through the Veil without being turned into demons through the shock are those who had developed personalities: the spirit has become complex, it can fulfil its purpose from different perspective and aspects, therefore it becomes stronger in their own purpose. I suspect the elvhen were in this level. So far we know, Mythal embodied things such as Wisdom, Motherhood, Justice and Revenge. Solas is a combination of Pride, Wisdom, and Rebellion. Abelas was also a combination of things we don’t know because we don’t know his previous names, but apparently, he changed his name every time his purpose changed. Cole is a rare exception as usual. Another spirit I can think of is Justice. He was certainly pulled into the Waking World, but it seems he had enough personality to survive as Justice, but the exposure to other people started to make him feel other things [remember he realised about Jealousy and Love with Kirstoff’s wife]. His change of purpose into Vengeance was more caused by the direct feeling of Anders’ rage inside, sadly.

Cole: If it helps enough people, it becomes more... wandering, wishing, touched by them, Maker loves you, and it grows. But I am me. Will I be more one day, if I help enough? Is this a task, timed, temporary? Solas: No. It is a mistake to ascribe human motivations to them. Cole: So I am always this? Solas: You are always you.

Here, Cole repeats the idea that reinforcing the purpose of the spirit makes the spirit be more themselves.

if Cole becomes more human:

Solas: How do you feel, Cole, now that you dealt with the Templar? Cole: I don't know. He hurt me... hurt the real Cole. I'm angry at him. I can't let that go. I have to become more, let it make me real. Solas: You may well become fully human, after all. I never thought to see it. Cole: When did you see it before? Solas: I did not say that I had. Cole: No, you didn't. It's harder to hear, sometimes. Sorry. Solas: Good luck, Cole. You have taken a difficult road.

Here, we can see that Solas saw this process once. Let’s remember that Cole, as he becomes more human, can hear less the depth of the creatures around him, so I’m pretty confident this banter means that Solas thought something along the lines “ I never thought to see it again”, but only said the first part. If we also remember that spirit-Cole says: "He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face." we can suspect that Solas was implying that the other creatures who became mortal were the elves, or himself.

Solas personal quest

He teaches us that some spirits want to come to the Waking World, but not all.

By the description of it, this spirit friend of Solas sounds similar to the one giving the lecture in Vir Dirthara: Attentive Listeners.

The perversion of a spirit of wisdom can be done too by forcing them to speak or release a piece of information they don’t want to.

I’m not sure how important or meaningful is the fact that this quest happens in a place called Enavuris. Sadly, we don’t have any means to understand this word.

Demons are spirits whose purpose has been perverted or forced to be another. What corrupted Solas’ friend was to be summoned and commanded to do something different to its nature.

I think here we can see some details about the bound process and how a demon is created: summoning a spirit, bound it to obedience, and force it to do something different than its purpose. Forced change is different to a spirit changing itself due to the people they interact with. Clearly here the key is the willingness, as it seems to be key in all spirit-related matters [we need to always remember Flemeth’s words about “A soul is not forced upon the unwilling”].

The inquisitor can propose to remove the binding circle, so free of orders, the spirit should return to its previous form.

Once the spirit is free, we see that it speaks Elvish, and you only understand this if the inquisitor is an elf.

We don’t see its ears, but its physique looks like a human. I suppose this shape is consequence of the mages that summoned it, so it reflected a human shape. Its eyes are full of Fade.

Solas asks for forgiveness for having failed her. The spirit is grateful anyway because it recovered its nature. I find it curious how it asks him to guide it into death. I also wonder why it dies, as a spirit who recovered its nature and was not harmed in the process of releasing it… why does it die? I wonder if this is just a small incoherence to continue Solas’ story.

Solas will endure as yet another spirit of wisdom dies.

When Solas is back to Skyhold, he says he went to the Fade to see the place his friend inhabited. He claims it’s empty now, but “there are stirrings of energy in the Void”. I’m confused with the capital letter in Void. We know that Void and Abyss are exchangeable in DA lore, and they are deeply related, ironically, to the depths of the underground [The Uncharted Abyss, Forgotten Caverns, Bastion of the Pure, and The Wellspring], and the more lore we learn, the more we relate it to the Titans and the Deep Roads.

He says that something new will grow in that spot. So… is this a subtle detail about the nature of death of spirits? Does a death of a spirit cause a stir in the Void that will produce something new there, inspired by what was lost? Can anything of this be related to the “dreams of the Titans”? No real clues to follow.

Once more, I’m a non-native English speaker, and I can’t stop noticing how the verb “stir” is used in DA: it has been used explicitly with Titans, and then left vague in less explicit cases like this. “The Stir of the Void energies”, which seem to be related to the underground, could also mean that this comes from some residual power of a Titan? Did the Titans create the Spirits and the Fade in the skies as well as the dwarves in the underground? There is so little information to explore this question that I doubted to even write it here. We know that the future of DA may be related to Titans, as Exaltations from the Chant of Light - Part 2 as well as the Mural of “The Destruction of the Veil“ seem to imply. We should never forget this is a game where, obviously, dev choices lead the story, and the fact that Exaltations is a text which talks about the return of the Maker implicating creatures such as Titans and beast-humans should not be overlooked. This is, after all, a lore element used by the devs as an in-world prophecy.

Anyways, Solas explains that death is different for mortals than for spirits [implicitly he may be saying that death is also different for immortal Elvhen and for mortal elves]. The spirits return to the Fade; if the idea giving shape the spirit is strong [meaning, there is enough idea in the Waking World for it to have a strong impact in the Fade], or its memory has shaped other spirits [meaning, other spirits will remember the dead one and such memory, if strong, can reconstruct it in the new reborn spirit], it may raise again as a consequence of reflecting what others reflects from its previous life [ this is exactly what he explained to us in the beginning of the game, in Haven, when talking about the nature of the spirits and their personhood]. However, due to the semi-existence nature of the spirits, the return produces a reset in their memory and personality. This doesn’t seem to be the case for Flemeth or Corypheus, but they are more complex than mere spirits.

Solas’ nature

Cole: You're different, Solas. Sharper. You're in both places. Solas: I visit the Fade regularly. Perhaps you are sensing traces of it. You are a spirit who crossed the Veil and took human form. Cole: Spirit or demon. Solas: The two are not so dissimilar, Cole. While the world may exert a pull in one direction or another, the choice is ultimately yours.

Cole says that Solas is in both places. This plays beautifully vague: Creators and Forgotten Ones, Fade and Waking World. This may suggest that Solas’s shape as an elf and as a wolf may have been dissociated [ “Self-portrait”] and his Wolf shape is the one roaming the Fade or the inside the Black City, vigilant as we conclude in several murals [ “The actions of the Inquisitor”, “The Creation of the Veil”]

if Cole becomes more human:

Here, we can assume that Solas saw the process of a spirit becoming mortal once, and considering the line of Cole: “He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face" we can suspect that the other creatures who became mortal were elvhen, or Solas himself. So there is a set of subtle details that may suggest that the process that Cole passed through to become a spirit with shape or even a human was similar to the one that Solas himself passed through long, long time ago.

Blackwall: I am sorry about your... friend. Losing someone is difficult. Solas: Thank you. The death itself was less painful than what came before. Seeing a good spirit twisted, its nature defiled. Those mages knew nothing of my friend. Worse, they did not care. Blackwall: I... don't know what to say. Solas: Nor will you, until you've seen ignorance snatch away all that you love. Pray such a day never finds you.

Another reinforcement of how spirits are twisted when forced against their purpose, which is a constant thing in Thedas, filled with so much ignorance about spirits due to, mainly, the Chantry’s teaching.

Blackwall: You make friends with spirits in the Fade. So... um, are there any that are more than just friends? If you know what I mean. Solas: Oh, for... really?! Blackwall: Look, it's a natural thing to be curious about! Solas: For a twelve-year-old! Blackwall: It's a simple yes or no question! Solas: Nothing about the Fade or spirits is simple, especially not that.

This is a very interesting concept that we saw and read in the codex Vir Dirthara: Birds of Fancy where, effectively, we can see the complexity in the lack of shape that creatures in the Fade had. Of course Blackwall makes it more like a joke, but we know that there is more to it.

Blackwall: For all your experience, Solas, you don't carry yourself like a soldier. Solas: You should have seen me when I was younger. Hot-blooded and cocky, always ready to fight. Blackwall: Ah, youth. Solas: It is a delicate balance for those who fight. If they lack sufficient passion, they never become truly skilled, and die or leave the life. Blackwall: But too much passion, and they end up dead; or monsters better off dead. Solas: Yes. It is a rare soldier who can fight without letting it define him.

Here, Solas speaks of soldiers and fighting as things that produce a change in the purpose of a spirit or an elvhen. He may imply that his fight may have changed him at some point, and hence my suspicion that he was more like a spirit of Wisdom or Pride, who due to Mythal’s request, he changed purpose and embraced shape, as it may suggest Cole’s cryptic line: “He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face.”

Iron Bull: Nice job in that last fight, Solas. You really kicked the crap outta that guy. Solas: I suppose. Iron Bull: What, you don't think so? You ripped him a new one. It was great! Solas: Unless the fight is personal, violence is a means to an end. It isn't appropriate to celebrate. Iron Bull: I don't know. Gotta wonder about anyone who fights as much as we do and doesn't have some fun with it. Solas: We have fought living men, with loves and families, and all that they might have been is gone.

Solas: You fought the Tal-Vashoth for a long time, Iron Bull, did you not? Iron Bull: Every day. I'd kill some of them, they'd kill some of my guys, and then I'd kill them some more. Solas: No man can kill so many people without breaking inside. To survive... those you fight must become monsters. Iron Bull: The ones that kill innocent people, yeah. The rest... I don't know. Solas: The mind does marvelous things to protect itself.

This is something very impressive that Solas says, since it’s part of the process that many soldiers make up in their minds so they can kill innocents, specially in countries they invade, and keep it like “it is duty and shit”. Solas is basically comparing this mechanism with the one that the Qun uses in their soldiers. This speaks not only of the brainwash that the Qun causes and that Solas despises deeply, but also may be subtly speaking about Solas: he never stops repeating the Inquisitor that all those people they kill had families and loved ones, he is always making them “humans”, reminding their individuality and personhood, even if it fills the killer with a lot of guilt. These lines probably make sense only after a time of Solas living in the Inquisition to make him recognise the personhood of the current mortals of this separate world [we need to remember that in the Tresspasser DLC he confessed that he did not see mortals as people when he woke up from his slumber, it took him a while to recognise it]. So, this constant “humanisation” of the people they kill has been feeding the Regret demon that has been following Solas for millennia. Solas is a soldier, a smart one, that has killed innocent people or at least, people that did not deserved it, specially those that showed acts of rebellion [like Felassan] but he needed them out of the board so he could accomplish a “greater good” in his eyes. This makes Solas more like a rebel who has become a bit of a martyr because his motivations and “duties”, than an evil villain, for what he is going to do.

This is also why Solas is presented at the end of Tresspasser as a man who will follow a plan and will take hard decisions that will destroy the world as it is now, but always embracing the regret and the pain of such actions, because he is not forgetting that he is destroying people as he recovers a previous world. It’s also true that such current world, as it is, is doomed too [remember that the fall of the Archdemons is going to unleash the “true evil” in this world].

Solas: I wish to apologise for what I said to you, Blackwall. Blackwall: You were right, though. I deserved it. Solas: My people had a saying long ago - "The healer has the bloodiest hands." You cannot treat a wound without knowing how deep it goes. You cannot heal pain by hiding it. You must accept. Accept the blood to make things better. You have taken the first step. That is the hardest part.

In several parts of his banter, we learn that Solas has a deep old pain, caused by a “mistake” he did when he was younger. This mistake was the creation of the Veil and the end of the elvhen world and their nature. Through the acceptance of such mistake, he has put in movement a new plan to restore it, to make “things better”, in his eyes.

Cole: You are quiet, Solas. Solas: Unless I have something to say, yes. Cole: No, inside. I don't hear your hurt as much. Your song is softer, subtler, not silent but still. Solas: How small the pain of one man seems when weighed against the endless depths of memory, of feeling, of existence. That ocean carries everyone. And those of us who learn to see its currents move through life with their fewer ripples. Cole: There is pain though, still within you. Solas: And I never said that there was not.

Inquisitor [who romanced Solas]: Perhaps Cole can get a better answer from you than I did. Cole: He hurts, an old pain from before, when everything sang the same. You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't. They sleep, masked in a mirror, hiding, hurting, and to wake them... (gasps) Where did it go? Solas: I apologize, Cole. That is not a pain you can heal.

Cole has several banters where he reinforces the concept that Solas has been in pain for a long while. In here, we also have a curious piece of information: “Old pain, from when everything sang the same”. We already saw that there are a lot of things in DA lore that sing [check Songs and elements that sing and whisper in DA Lore] which suggests that Solas is a very ancient soul.

There is also a reinforcement of the idea that through the romance, Solas may have changed even more deeply his vision of the personhood of the mortals of Thedas. I think this applies too for a friendly path, since he confesses in the DLC that, after a time, he began to see mortals as people.

Occurs after completing Solas’ personal quest:

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

Here we see again the repetition of the concept of Solas’ pain; this time added to the pain of losing yet another spirit of wisdom, or a gentle spirit in general. It is implied here that Solas looks for wisdom, in a word play that may represent the spirit he just helped to die now, or wisdom as in general. He has a deep understanding of wisdom [maybe the ideal or the spirit] that no other creature has.

When first encountering the Black Wolves in the Hinterlands:

Solas: The Breach may have driven them mad... or perhaps a demon took command of the pack. Cole: Do you know a lot about wolves? Solas: I know that they are intelligent, practical creatures that small-minded fools think of as terrible beasts.

This implies that Solas, whose animal associated with him is the wolf, is an intelligent, practical person who has a terrible reputation given by small-minded creatures.

Solas: Yes, exactly. Deliberately crossing the Veil requires that a spirit form will, personality. That concept of self gives a spirit the chance to maintain its nature. Wrenched into this world unwillingly by the rifts, spirits suffer the same fate as my friend.

This was already treated in the Demon/Spirit nature section, but it seems to me it can apply to Solas, if the suspicion that he was a spirit who took shape is true. He may have preserved his purpose mostly because he always had a personality.

Solas: You spied upon your own people. Iron Bull: Is that so different from Orlais or Ferelden? They have all kinds of people policing them. Solas: What they say and do, yes. Not what they think. Iron Bull: What you think is what you say and do. Solas: No. Even the lowliest peasant may find freedom in the safety of her thoughts. You take even that.

Solas: Surely, even you see, Iron Bull, that freedom is preferable to mindless obedience to the Qun. Iron Bull: How so? Last I checked, our mages weren't burning down Par Vollen. […] Solas: Do not equivocate. Would we or would we not be better under the Qun? Iron Bull: It's not that simple, Solas. Solas: It absolutely is.

Iron Bull: Alright, Solas, been thinking. You wanna know how this place would be if the Qunari took charge? Orlais, Ferelden, all of it would be healthier under the Qun. […] Oh, come on. I said I didn't want us to invade you! Solas: No. You said this world would be brighter if all thinking individuals were stripped of individuality. You only lack the will to get more blood on your hands.

Iron Bull: Tell me something, Solas. Do you think the servants here are happier than the people living under the Qun in Par Vollen? Solas: It doesn't matter if they are happy, it matters that they may choose! Iron Bull: Choose? Choose what? Whether to do their work or get tossed onto the street to starve? Solas: Yes! If a Ferelden servant decides that his life goal is to... become a poet, he can follow that dream! It may be difficult, and he might fail. But the whole of society is not aligned to oppose him! Iron Bull: Sure, and good for him. How many servants actually go do that, though? Solas: Almost none! What does that matter? Your Qun would crush the brilliant few for the mediocre many! Iron Bull: And then people feel like crap for failing. When the truth is, the deck was stacked against them anyway.

Solas: If your Qun is so wonderful, so fair and perfect, how does it create so many Tal-Vashoth? Iron Bull: Most Tal-Vashoth are nothing more than savages. Killing's all they know. The Ben-Hassrath are trying to lose fewer people to that sickness. Solas: It isn't a sickness. You are losing them because they see a chance for freedom! And most of them are "savage," as you say, because your culture taught them nothing else. They know nothing but the Qun. So even as they fight against it, they are guided by its principles. Iron Bull: Watch it, elf. You haven't seen the Tal-Vashoth like I have. Try watching a Tal-Vashoth kill a Tamassran and her kids. Then we'll talk.

When siding with the Qun:

Solas: The truth is, Iron Bull, you are Qunari. I cannot be disappointed in your decisions. As a mindless, soulless drone, you could never make any.

When not siding with the Qun:

Solas: You are no beast, snapping under the stress of the Qun's harsh discipline. You are a man who made a choice... possibly the first of your life. Iron Bull: I've always liked fighting. What if I turn savage, like the other Tal-Vashoth? Solas: You have the Inquisition, you have the Inquisitor... and you have me. Iron Bull: Thanks, Solas.

Gatt: Have I done something to offend you? Solas: You joined the Qun. Gatt: After they rescued me from slavery. Solas: And put you into something worse. A slave may always struggle for freedom, but you among the Qun have been taught not to think.

Solas has a strong sense of Freedom that he wants to give to all creatures. He values choice, hence he detests the Qun. This is also related to his sense and embodiment of Rebellion. Let’s remember that Solas’ latest purpose was/is, before anything else, Rebellion. He will always defend the smallest gesture of Rebellion. Rebellion also comes at a high price; he never denies it. Rebellion can cost you your life, and he is alright with that. The rebel has to be cunning to survive as well.

Solas also sees the Qunari as people without the ability to make decisions, defined as “mindless, soulless” drones; which I cannot help but relate with the dwarves: the elvhenan saw the “workers of the Titans” as “witless and soulless” creatures that they despised them [Old Elven Writing, Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 3]. The link between dwarves as a race created by Titans, with the Qunari, another race artificially created by someone else [Tevinter most likely] seems to give the impression that Elvhenan detested created races due to their lack of freedom.

Solas, as an entity that represents Rebellion and Pride, despises mindless obedience, and as an entity of Wisdom, the lack of thinking. In thinking by your own, you show individuality that may or may not obey a greater force, but the act itself is rebel enough to make Solas happy. This is why he has such a strange approval system all over the game: the more you question, the more you show him curiosity and a sharp mind, who thinks about the events and do not accept them as they come, so the more he approves. He disapproves all your actions that simply accept the world as it is without wondering about it.

These bits of banters also imply that the Qun has been a tool to control and tame a race that may have been seen as beasts. This coincides with the fragmented details we got throughout the game: Corypheus calling the race of a Qunari inquisitor “a mistake” and their blood as “engorged with decay”. Later Kieran says that the Qunari blood “does not belong to them” and that he “feels bad about what happened to the Qunari people” [details in Frostback Mountains: Somewhere North]. All this seems to suggest that the Qunari may have been a crafted race [I’m not sure if by the Elvhen or the Tevinter created them, I am inclined to the second one] which was tamed and forced into slavery and passivity through the usage of the Qun, which reinforces the idea of roles and “serving to the community” at the expense of the personal individuality.

Other bits of info we have about Solas and his nature from the Tresspasser DLC are the following [the screenshots and the details are in the section “Trespasser Revelations”]

Solas was first “Solas” [Pride], then he changed his purpose, likely due to the interaction with other people, and turned into Fen’Harel [Rebellion], which has some degree of pride, after all. However this name was given by the Evanuris, he did not pick it.

He is not a “piece” of Fen’Harel, like Mythal is in Flemeth. This elf has always been Solas, until he took shape, I guess.

After the creation of the Veil, Solas “lay” in dark and slumbered [he did not call this Uthenera because it was not final] to recover from the effort. History passed and he awoke, still weak, a year before the creation of the Inquisition.

He wants to restore the elvhen world, even if it means to destroy this one. On the other hand, in combination with what he said previously, if this world is slowly losing the ward that has been protecting it from the big danger he hid in the Black City, it’s just a matter of time for this world to fall anyway. Thedas is already a doomed world.

Solas takes no pleasure in destroying this world to recover the old one.

Solas acknowledges that his role as a leader of a rebellion always implied dirty hands. It was the price to fight mage-kings. He recognises he has used a lot of people in hopeless battles.

When he awoke in this world, it felt to him as if the world were filled with tranquils.

He recognises the people of this new world was not perceived as people at first, but the more he saw the struggles and the humanity of each living creature throughout DAI, he acknowledged their personhood. If Solas is your friend, he will claim it was you who showed him the personhood of the living creatures of Thedas and that there is value in this world. He recognised he was wrong in his previous impression.

Cassandra: Solas, if you do not mind me asking, what do you believe in? Solas: Cause and effect. Wisdom as its own reward, and the inherent right of all free willed people to exist.

Pretty clear what Solas’ beliefs are.

#solas #Dreamers #Somniari #elvhenan #elvhen #Dalish #demon #spirit #Spirits #solas' nature #qun #qunari

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