Eepy' Wisdom

until the world fades away

Sorry, but I just don’t buy the whole “actually Mythal decided after centuries of wandering Thedas as Flemeth that modern people deserve a chance” thing. Because the fragment of Mythal we’re talking about is the jaded old swamp witch who

-Inhabited the body of a woman betrayed by her lover(s) because they found common ground in their suffering and the injustices done to them. (“Once I was but a woman, crying out in the lonely darkness for justice.” - DAI)

-Resents that betrayal to the point she views men as disposable playthings that she can lure back to her hut, have her way with, and then… murder? I think? (Based on Morrigan’s own account in DAO)

-Abused her daughter under the guise of tough love in an attempt to prepare her for a cruel uncaring world. (Again, Morrigan’s account, DAO)

-Says during her appearance in Inquisition that she will have her reckoning.

-Spent centuries consolidating her power as well as cycling through different human women’s bodies via questionable means for the sake of bringing about said reckoning. (“I have carried Mythal through the ages ever since, seeking the justice denied to her.” and about the Inquisitor: “A Herald indeed. Shouting to the heavens, harbinger of a new age.” - DAI)

-During her scene with Solas at the end of Inquisition does NOT say ANYTHING about disagreeing with Solas’s plans, just that she considers him and old friend and is sorry things are going the way they are. (Seriously, is the dialogue in that regret scene in Veilguard supposed to be from a mental connection they had? Because that dialogue just isn’t in the Inquisition scene.)

And I’m supposed to believe that in her last moments, Flemythal backed off and went “actually I think we need to maintain the status quo”????

None of this paints a picture of someone who has gone soft over time. At least not to the degree that is presented in that regret scene in Veilguard. Sure Flemeth wasn’t all bad, she had some tenderness to her. She shows some genuine care for Morrigan and Kieran (if present) and seems hurt when Morrigan implies she was trying not to be the kind of mother Flemeth was to her.

At the end of Inquisition, we can’t tell for certain to what degree she approves of Solas’s methods. But it seems like a step in said methods was to absorb her power and doom her, an embodiment of Justice, to take a passive role once more. And we know what happens when a spirit is denied its purpose. Justice denied its purpose could turn to Vengeance. Which, to me, feels like it would better echo the themes of Solas’s pride/wisdom duality, inquisition’s themes around what it means to become a god-like force of nature, DA2’s question of whether violence is necessary for revolution (which literally has the Justice/Vengeance duality in it with Anders), and DAO’s theme of sacrifice for the greater good.

Perhaps this will prove an unpopular opinion, but I think that, seeing as they chose to make everything hinge on the inquisitor being high approval with Solas & wanting to save him no matter what & locked his best ending behind having romanced him, so that if you wanted a satisfying ending to the series you HAD to choose to redeem him with a female Lavellan, otherwise the inquisitor's only purpose in VG is to hand you a wolf statuette...(?!?? and even that's tied to the redeem ending, lol) ANYWAY, seeing all that, I believe they should've committed even more to it and have it be an option even for non-romanced inquisitors, regardless of race, to offer to join him à la Witch Hunt where you can offer to join Morrigan through the eluvian even as a friend, only you can actually go through with it this time. Now, before I'm pelted with rotten tomatoes, I think it should've been an option just for an Inky who didn't romance anyone, so that fans could have their happy ending with their LI of choice (though I am compelled by the idea of the inquisitor as someone, like Solas, who puts their duty to the world above everything, but that's another discussion). But I think it makes sense, both as a choice made by an Inquisitor who became close friends with Solas and never lost faith in him and doesn't want him to face everything alone (could there be other Feelings involved, too? that's for us to headcanon, ofc) AND as a purely pragmatic choice, seeing Solas as someone who shouldn't be left alone to their own devices for long, esp in such a vulnerable state - just like Mythal needed his Wisdom, one could argue he needs the Inquisitor to guide him back to being Wisdom again (or maybe they just wanna nope out after failing to save the South, considering we're told repeatedly that they're the only thing holding it all from collapsing and then we find out it's all gone, yeah, I'd go into witness protection too, lmao). ALSO, I think it would slap to have a dwarven Inquisitor say that they're interested in being a part of soothing the Blight (or, at least, supervising and holding him to it) and that THAT should be his priority. Anywho, thots? Am I cooking or is there a gas leak?

i think you're cooking.

i agree that the atonement ending is the most satisfying narrative - the player stats prove that's not an unpopular opinion. more explicitly tying the inquisitor to solas narratively would have been interesting. inquisition did this soooo well with in hushed whispers specifically but also literally every quest. even the non-romanced atonement scene is so good, inky says something like "you're free to find a new purpose" instead of the "banal nadas ar lath ma vhenan" and i actually prefer that to the elven with the botched translation LOL. i also like the interpretation i've seen that the "veilguard" is really not Rook & Co. but is actually solas. he's the one that tied his life to the veil. he's the one keeping it up. he's the one guarding it. so having the inquisitor join him, especially a dalish one, whether romanced or not, and especially a dalish mage, whose job as first and eventual keeper was going to be to protect their clan from the dread wolf. protecting the whole world from the dreadwolf by helping him atone is a natural extension of that, and i think is very satisfying. i also agree it would be really interesting and meaningful for a cadash to have the option to participate in the healing of the titans dreams.

i also agree that a lot of people would get mad about this because to them it would threaten lavellan's being "special" but i dont believe in that so idc. i think its an interesting idea!!

Epilogue

Fade Couple

[needed to do more...] [part 1]

doodlin the lad while Not at ECCC table L-23 😂😭😭

can't wait to set up tomorrow during the middle of the con!!!! (despair)

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION EXTRACTS - SOLAS HEAD TURNAROUND

Thinking about this data and seeing red.

There was so much space for a nuanced, beautiful exploration of one of the best and most complex characters they’ve ever given us, and instead he got reduced to a handful of regrets presented with zero empathy and a shit tonne of blame when Mythal was RIGHT THERE, dismissive comments about his trauma (“they were doin it” 🤢), and “god of lies”—not sure I will get over this aspect. There were many things about Veilguard I genuinely loved, but this? This can get in the bin.

“DATV is about hope and is escapist” then why is the story retroactively trying to paint Solas, the only person of the Evanuris who used his power and privilege to help end slavery and liberate the elves, as a prideful arrogant self-centered bastard who secretly loved being worshipped as a god when every single thing he has ever said and done contradicts those assumptions made by the Veilguard companions.

Oh I’m sorry, do you think slave rebellions can be accomplished through peaceful means? Through purely decentralized anarchist uprisings? Are we trying to argue that Solas didn’t rebel the “correct way”? Are we trying to argue that Solas actually wanted to be worshipped as a god by those he freed. Solas, a man who wanted nothing more than to be a spirit of Wisdom and act as nothing more than an entity that would help people act and think mindfully?

The game’s dialogue for the companions tries to make it out like Solas enjoyed being a rebellion leader, rather than it being one of the most frustrating and agonizing and embittering experiences of his existence. The game is so clumsy that is seems to imply that Solas trying to do right by the elves with the rebellion was another mistake on his part, as if someone trying to fight for the rights of an oppressed people is something that is ever a mistake one could make.

Real liberal (derogatory) hours here. Even at your most uncharitable—Solas helped give the elves bodies and helped the Evanuris secure their power—he was trying to correct that mistake and was the only one of the Evanuris that was actively doing so. Mythal was dragging her ass the entire fucking time trying to be a fence-sitting centrist that thought you could actually parley and negotiate with slave owners. Oh but wait, Veilguard conveniently proves you can! Just look at Dorian! Apparently all you needed to dismantle centuries upon centuries of brutal inhumane slavery was a dandy saying “please let the slaves go” and everything is all but resolved in ten fucking years. Solas, why didn’t you try taaaalking to the blood magic warmongering slave sacrificing Evanuris? Maybe things would’ve gone better if you’d just asked nicely 🥺

Veilguard tries to go the “Solas is corrupting into Pride” and they botched it so terribly. Solas is prideful, but the writers made him out like his problem was a secret vanity or desire for power. No, his problem was that he thought he was correct. That is a 100000% entirely different issue and it shows that the writers have no concept of nuance for psychology or even what Wisdom and even Pride are. And for people to swallow “Wow Solas was just a power-hungry arrogant bastard all along” is like reading Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee —the abandoned prototype of To Kill a Mockingbird that was meant to remain an unused manuscript—and thinking that is the real story and everything established in TKaM about Atticus Finch was just smoke and mirrors. Like come the fuck on.

Solas’s issue is that as a mortal he is inundated with mortal feelings that interfere with the purity of Wisdom. All mortals have levels of dignity and pride that are inextricably linked and mutually dependent to their recognition of their own personhood. Self-esteem, if you will. Wisdom is the act of deliberating and determining and enacting the best—most morally correct, most benign, most benign, most “good”—course of action in a scenario based on an aggregation of information and experiences. Solas’s “Pride” and biggest flaw is that he believes his judgments are the most objectively correct or best because this guy has spent tens of thousands of years watching and observing and experiencing people make the same mistakes over and over, behave in similar cyclical predictable ways in matters of love, power, violence, hatred, greed, tyranny, cruelty, ignorance, oppression, pride, grief, etc. Because Wisdom is derived from being able to apply knowledge and history and experience to solve a present problem, Solas naturally thinks he’s no spring chicken to all this and that he’s got a better grasp than most. Where Wisdom turns into Pride is the nature of the mortal mind, which for many likes to rely on rules of thumb and shortcuts and patterns to solve issues. While this is present in the dissemination of Wisdom, the flipside is that it can leave one vulnerable to stubbornness and partiality to one’s viewpoint regardless of new developments. Again, the mortal mind likes shortcuts because it saves time. Puzzling out whether this person or that scenario is truly uniquely unique every single time, wastes time. This is how presumptions and stereotypes arise. That Solas could only observe modern Thedas through what was reflected in the Fade gave him a half-understanding of people. That he chose to develop a resentment toward the Dalish after one bad encounter and remain detached from other races before joining the Inquisition meant he had fallen prey to these intellectual pitfalls, which is the result of his mortal nature interfering with his Wisdom nature.

Solas has never wanted to rule over people. He has never once wanted to be worshipped even at his most manipulative and Machiavellian. He wants to sit under a tree in the summer and discuss idly whether fire could be considered alive and if good requires evil to exist and the pros and cons of allowing collective memory to remain unchallenged.

Like of all things, the butchering of Solas’s character pisses me off to no end. Dislike him if you want, hate him if you want, but don’t for a second try to misconstrue that his problem is that he has secret aspirations for godhood. Does he think ancient elves are a superior race? There are definitely indications. But he doesn’t think of himself as someone to be worshipped by anyone, least of all other elves. Very huge distinction.

Two big differences between Mythal and Solas is that Solas regrets all the terrible things he's done. That is, in fact, a major plot point and theme. He shows remorse and at his core he wants to fix his mistakes. Mythal, or at least the fragment you can speak to, doesn't regret her actions at all. If you call her on the blight being her fault she attacks you. She doesn't accept responsibility. Solas does. That doesn't erase the guilt or culpability, but it does make me respect him more than I do her.

The second difference is that Solas rejects the notion that he's a god. Mythal doesn't. Again, if you ask her to help you against the other Evanuris and state that the people don't need gods she gets angry and attacks you. Maybe it's just the anarchist in me, but I've got a lot more respect for someone who rejects worship and fights tyranny than I do the tyrant being fought. Because that is what she was, as much as any of the others. A benevolent dictator and slave owner is still a dictator and a slave owner.

Now, if I'm putting my character analysis hat on for Mythal *specifically* I'd say that it's possible she reacts like this because she does feel guilt. I know, that does contradict what I just said. But I do think it's possible that her anger and violent reaction is a defense mechanism and a shield against being confronted with the truth of the damage she caused. Admitting that you're wrong is one of the hardest things a person can do, even without having had centuries of worship heaped on you and going to your head. So when someone you see as lesser calls you out to your face? That's a hard pill to swallow. Again though. Solas does swallow it. Solas takes blame. Heaps it upon himself until it defines everything he does (which is another problem in itself but We Don't Have Time For That Right Now). Mythal, by contrast, rejects it. Right until she absolves Solas of his duty, and finally takes some responsibility herself.

Bright and brilliant, he wanders the ways, walking unwaking, searching for wisdom…