Recent Playing: Baldur's Gate 3
Jun. 20th, 2025 05:22 pmCrossposted to
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One of the frustrating things about Veilguard is how it avoids the weight of Solas' responsibility to his people. By tying his grief and regret primarily to Mythal, it makes his choices about the Veil personal, when it had always been so much more than that, which he expressed himself in the Trespasser DLC (and hints at throughout Inquisition when he talks about what the world has lost, although then he couches it merely as things he's "seen in the Fade").
Solas loved the ancient elves, loved them so much he started a rebellion against would-be gods because he felt so strongly the people deserved freedom and choice. He devoted himself to freeing them from the tyranny and slavery of the Evanuris, but in the end, his leadership and choices cost them almost everything.
Veilguard gives a quick mention of this in Varric's narration at the start, but otherwise throughout the game shockingly little attention is given to Solas' grief for what he sees as the harm he caused his own people, the very ones he was trying to save, compared to the time given to his personal grief for Mythal.
In the rewritten confrontation between Solas and Flemythal after Inquisition, she derides his guilty conscience, but Rook and co, trying to understand him and convince him to change his mind about the Veil, never really acknowledge the weight of the guilt he carries over what became of the elves and the spirits after he constructed the Veil. There isn't even lip service paid to the debt he feels he owes his people or the spirits now trapped almost entirely in the Fade; instead, his desire to remove the Veil often feels framed as the desperate lashing out of a man lost in grief, heedless of the damage he's doing.
But to really examine this might force the game to address what it hinted at about the uthenerai at the end of Trespasser: that there may be ancient elves--perhaps many of them--still alive, waiting for the Veil to come down so they can be woken. It might also be forced to address how spirits have suffered since the Veil went up, and what that means for Solas who was one of them and seems still to identify more with spirits than elves. And that might make the choices in the game actually difficult, because Rook would be asking Solas not just to preserve their world, but to condemn the remnants of his own people and accept the segregation of spirits to the Fade to do it.
Solas' remark about "the world she wanted" in the Veilguard climax make no sense. We have not been given any evidence that Mythal cares about the state of the world, or spirits, or the Veil, except that she thinks Elgar'nan sometimes goes too far, and at present Flemythal has come to feel the mortals deserve to live (certainly, nothing about Mythal in the flashbacks we get suggests she would have any real opinion on the Veil). Solas, on the other hand, is eaten alive with guilt over the harm he inadvertently did to the elves, to the spirits (his original people), to the environment. Those feelings have nothing to do with Mythal: they are a product of his own pain at seeing the damage his Veil caused. But they cannot be truly dealt with in the game, which depends on Mythal's ability to wave her hand and brush away Solas' guilt and desire to repair the damage he did, which means his feelings must be heavily tied to her, not to the spirits or the elves or the world itself
It makes his motivations much weaker, and weakens his character overall.
Length: 3.5k
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Solas had liked the sound of “we don’t leave people behind.” It felt noble and it improved morale and it meant not giving more wins to the Evanuris than were wholly unavoidable. Yet the uglier and more protracted this rebellion became, the costlier “no man left behind” was as a policy. Eventually, over the sound of Felassan grinding his teeth, Solas officially cut it off. Rebelling against would-be gods was hazardous—anyone who joining them had to be aware. He would not risk more lives—and more fighters—on suicidal rescue missions.
There were, however, exceptions.
Length: 6.1k
! Dragon Age Veilguard Spoilers Below !
When Solas tilted his head to deepen the kiss, Lavellan delicately withdrew, as she had done repeatedly since they had entered the Fade. She had made no complaints, nor reprimands, nor in any other way indicated he was behaving inappropriately, yet in the past he had known her to have more tolerance for such things. Unable to suppress his concerns any further, Solas probed carefully.
“You are distracted,” he observed, keeping his tone light. Lavellan was looking off into what constituted the horizon of their world. “What has ahold of your thoughts?”
Lavellan hummed. “Nothing,” she said, matching his lightness, looking up at the sky as if there were something there of surpassing interest which he should also find compelling. Solas had grown accustomed to the tells of Lavellan’s lying, even if she had managed it more adeptly in this instance.
Using a tack which was generally reliable for getting information from her, while keeping his voice gentle, he said: “I wish you would tell me what troubles you.”
There was a lengthy pause, while Lavellan tugged at the sparse Fade grass around them, debating whether to make another effort at lying. Finally, she spoke.
“Do you remember when I drank from the vir’abelasan?” Solas snorted in disapproval.
“Yes, I would not forget.”
“Well, that piece of Mythal…she is with me still. She does not make herself known often, but she is there. And she is…most …vocal when you and I are close.” They were close more often than not these days. There was no one else for company but the spirits.
Solas cocked his head to the side, intrigued.
“Perhaps it—the fragment—is responding to something,” he said. “A memory of Mythal’s, or some association she once had?”
Lavellan hummed again, in the way she did before she drastically understated something. “No, I don’t think that’s it,” she said, still picking at the grass and not looking at him. Solas studied her profile a moment.
“What do you think?” he asked, since she was the one with a bit of Mythal in her head.
“Ah…” Again, he watched her consider lying. Again, she eventually fell out on the side of cautious honesty. “I believe she is…uncomfortable developing such an…incarnate knowledge of you.”
As usual, Lavellan phrased herself so obtusely that Solas had to consider her words a moment before grasping what she was putting so tidily.
And when he realized, he could not stop himself from laughing.
“Has the fragment spoken to you?” he asked.
“No,” Lavellan said. “But the sentiment is present.”
“And what is the sentiment?”
“I imagine it is similar to how I might feel about suddenly sharing a mind with my sister-in-law,” said Lavellan, and Solas let out another burst of laughter, briefly consumed with the thought of Mythal’s expression at having to be party to Lavellan’s experience of his romantic advances, then sobered as he realized the problems this presented. “I am working on soothing her,” said Lavellan. “But she is still…fussy.” She exhaled loudly. “I must admit you were correct when you warned me that there would be consequences to drinking from the vir’abelasan of which I had not yet conceived.”
“And I will confess I had not foreseen this particular consequence myself,” Solas replied.
“Well,” Lavellan sighed with some chagrin, at last turning her attention back to him directly. “At least we have quite some time to sort it out.”
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! Dragon Age Veilguard Spoilers Below !
I'm sure other people have already said this and will continue to say so in more eloquent ways going forward, but the inquisitor really is a far better foil to Solas than Rook, whether friended, romanced, rivaled, or none of the above. The inquisitor is someone pushed into a difficult position, who chose to take on a leadership role they maybe weren't ready for because they felt they needed to for the greater good, and was then hit with decision after world-altering decision. Side with the mages or the templars in an ongoing war. Choose whether to let them join you as allies or forced conscripts. Decide what happens to the Grey Wardens, an organization centuries old and possibly critical to Thedas' defense but also possibly incurably corrupt. Pass judgement on Blackwall, on Florianne, on Erimond, on Warden Ruth. Are you going to claim the mantle of the Herald of Andraste or not? Too bad, the people around you have already decided that's what you are, what they need you to be. Prioritize: Saving a group of people close to one of your friends (possibly your lover), or saving an alliance with a world power who may help you save the world. Sit in your castle and manage these hundreds or thousands of troops who are now ardently devoted to your cause, willing and even eager to kill and die in your name. Inquisitor would you--? Inquisitor, what do you think about--? Inquisitor, we need--!
And people will be angry with you about these decisions! They all have opinions about how the world should be and if you act in opposition to those they will not hesitate to express their displeasure. You cannot make a decision on the Grey Wardens that both Blackwall and Solas will approve of.
The inquisitor little by little is forced into leadership beyond what they likely ever intended, and the consequences of their actions will ring across southern Thedas for years, possibly generations, and they will have to live with choices they made in the throes of a desperate war for survival, and so will everyone else.
By contrast, Rook primarily deals only with their small circle of friends and rarely makes any significant decisions outside of saving Minrathous or Treviso (which was not much of a choice--obviously they can't be in two places at once, so one city is going down no matter what) and there are no real consequences to any of their choices, besides the first one--disrupting Solas' ritual and unleashing Elgar'nan and Ghilain'nain, something no one ever blames them for. They complete their entire quest to stop Solas without ever commanding or being responsible for more than seven people and are never pressed into having to make a truly difficult or unwinnable choice. Rook doesn't know what it's like to even be in the inquisitor's position, let alone Solas'.