Solas, Elven Apostate, Fen'harel, Dreadwolf

he's never getting rest again

Epilogue

Fade Couple

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

Weisshaupt mission was insane I still think about it ghghghhg

felassan things that kept me awake last night:

the 4,000 year time span between the veil and the masked empire during which felassan could only ever have spoken to solas in dreams when at all.

the years solas spent in the lighthouse with all those fucking notes from felassan around. "don't cause too much trouble before i get there."

the only time anyone says felassan's name out loud in the video games is when solas says it in an ancient arlathan memory

solas not painting felassan a mural in the lighthouse and only referring to him as "my agent," once, but still regretting what happened with him so much that it's one of the three big revenants powered by his regret, after the titans and mythal???? sir your repression

the ambiguity of "the betrayal of felassan" as the name of that revenant. whose betrayal of whom.

the heart of corruption/revenant dragon residing in the same place felassan used to go to get away from everything.

felassan calling it "our rebellion."

felassan being aware that he would die if he reported back to solas, seeing a plausible way he could run instead, and reporting back anyway.

the tone he takes during his death scene being so friendly and nonchalant, "what's the harm really" and "i suspect you'll hate this," like he's still trying to talk to solas like they are friends and equals even while he is aware solas is about to kill him.

felassan isn't even his real/original name and in one of his veilguard notes he refers to being felassan at all as being "solas's friend felassan" like that identity is inextricably tied to his friendship with solas, he cannot be felassan without also being solas's friend.

"and you are the slow arrow?" / "i hope so."

in conclusion,

elves fleeing the ruined city of arlathan and being welcomed with open arms into cad'halash thaig. the very spirits that stole the lyrium from their gods and used their newfound bodies to tranquilize them, and yet the dwarves said "come to us, we will shelter you". dwarves and elves alike being destroyed by kal-sharok so as to not jeopardize their alliance with the tevinter imperium. somewhere in cad'halash thaig a dwarf and an elf were holding one another when they died. ir sa tel'nal. isatunoll.

As with every group of whispers, they often are thrown in as background noise and reversed. So I took the liberty to reverse the Well of Sorrows whispers and clean up the audio. A mantra of whispers going in circles, sung by a Well.

Some of the Whispers Heard:

Go to the Dirth Mythal speaks for the elves Travel Far She speaks for the elves She’s abelas Mythal She speaks for them both

Also, as a pleasant add on to this oh, so not creepy audio. The Dirth is another name for The Exalted Plains, as a Dalish elf there will tell you. The Exalted Plains/The Dirthavaren (The Promise) was were the last of elven nation fell.

Solas and Varric inaudible argument dialogue...

I managed to clean up the dialogue audio of Solas and Varric "arguing inaudibly" in the background during ritual while you're running to break scaffolding.. I wanted to know exactly what they were saying! :) If anyone else is interested and couldn't hear it in the game... 😊

This is much better than the final version too. It goes more into why Solas is even doing this and Rook feels less like a bus driver.

So my biggest problem with Solas x Mythal isn’t that I’m “jealous” of their relationship or anything like that. In fact, I really like the concept of her being a toxic and abusive relationship he has to let go of to be able to move forward and find true happiness with the inquisitor.

My problem is that it cheapens Solas’s motivations and seems to make his only reasoning for tearing down the veil be loyalty to Mythal. It also, to me, downplays the significance of the inquisitor’s influence on him. This was disappointing because in Inquisition, we were introduced to Solas as this very wise, idealistic, and thoughtful person who cared deeply for his causes. Justice for Mythal was one of his motivations, but I never interpreted it as his main motivation. I thought his main motivation was always to make a better world and fix his mistakes.

I truly believe that he’s not wrong about some things. The veil IS a wound inflicted on this world. It was made by him; it’s not the world’s natural state. It’s falling apart and broken. It creates a class divide between mages and non-mages, and by separating spirits from the physical realm, it makes them more susceptible to corruption into demons and makes people scared of them. There are tons of instances through DAO - DAI where weak spots in the veil lead to mass demon possessions and death. It made a world where elves die instead of live forever, and where they either live in slums or as shadows of their former glory in the woods. But DATV didn’t address ANY of this. It painted Solas to be this lovesick pup whose motivation was purely emotion-based, and it didn’t help that this game didn’t go into Thedas’s socio-political climate so a new player wouldn’t understand that the world of Thedas is seriously messed up, and that Solas’s plan would resolve a lot of the issues in need of fixing.

The problem is, and always has been, the cost. Solas restoring the natural order of the world would cost thousands of lives, and destroy the current world and all the good it has to offer. In order to abandon this plan, Solas needed to not only be released from Mythal’s service, but to let go of the world of the past. He needed to acknowledge that the world he loved is gone, that a new world that he also loves has taken its place, and that it deserves a chance to live. It’s sort of implied that he goes through this shift in belief in Trespasser, but it’s not enough at the time, and that’s okay.

Anyway, with all this in mind, this is how I’m choosing to interpret Solas’s entire redemption arc. Solas did have his reasons to tear down the veil that he passionately believed in, but through his interactions with the inquisitor and rook, the only reason that truly remained was that he didn't want to fail Mythal. They changed his perspective on the world, and showed him that it’s a world worth preserving, even if it’s different. He didn’t want to do what he had to do, and by the end of DAI and/or Veilguard, the only thing keeping him tied to his course was duty to Mythal. So she has to free him to allow him to move on.

However. If Mythal had released him from his service at the beginning of inquisition, because Solas hadn’t gained any affection for the new world, it wouldn’t have mattered. He would’ve been like "cool i'm doing this anyway because I want to.” Changing his course required two things: having his heart changed by the inquisitor, and Mythal allowing him to move on. Unfortunately I feel like the game is a little sloppy with this and makes it feel like freedom from Mythal is all that matters, but my dear friends, she is not. It was a team effort all around, and Solas’s redemption would not have been possible without our beloved inquisitor. 💜

dao thru dai: the world is built by unreliable narrators. everyone has a vastly different opinion on things that colors their perception of life and the state of living. there is no one real answer

datv: the veil cant come down because thats bad