They Made Solas Dumb In Veilguard, And That's Worse Than Making Him More Villainous. I Would Have Preferred

this whole idea in both the fandom and the games themselves that being a people attached to their past & a lost civilization is a failing whereas a celebration of the present is something to strive for wrt elven & dwarven culture is something that reads as fundamentally western & liberal to me.

Dragon Age Veilguard, doodles 4

Just thinking about the scene with Solas and Lavellan where she tells him he doesn’t have to go alone, and he replies where he is going is terrible.

Yes, it’s a warning. But it is also disbelief she could want to follow him somewhere terrible. That she would still want to be with him, despite where he must go. Why would she choose freely to go somewhere terrible? For him? The concept is foreign to him.

The last time he loved someone, Mythal, he asked her to leave everything she knew behind to join him, and she refused. He did that very thing for her, but she would not do the same for him. He made her a place for her to be comfortable, and she never saw it.

Solas has nothing to offer Lavellan. No castle to gift her, no place for her to be comfortable. He is at his lowest. He is going somewhere terrible. He only has empty, bloody hands to give.

I’m reminded of that scene from Little Women (1994) when Professor Bhaer tells Jo, “But I have nothing to give you. My hands are empty.” Jo takes his hands in hers and says, “Not empty now.”

Lavellan does much the same. She reaches for his hands, bloody as they are. She tells him it won’t be terrible if he is with her. They make this journey together, always. She doesn’t need anything else. He is enough. Their love is enough. There is no fate but the love they share.

Why would she choose freely to go somewhere terrible? Because she loves him. It’s True Love. The kind that only can exist in stories. Good thing we’re in one.

Friendly reminder that:

Qunari are empowering Saarebas with lyrium so that they can become stronger, open temporary Rifts, slow time down, and use mysterious spells, all through unknown means.

Tevinter is terribly weakened, corrupted, and will not last in the war against the Qunari.

Fen’Harel, now incredibly powerful, is planning to eliminate the corrupted parts of the Qun (good thing), but also to tear down the Veil (not that good, depending on the consequences). He will probably help the Tevinter slaves in rebelling against their masters too.

Titans are awakening. They are enormous beings living deep underground, whose blood has been consumed for millennia by mages and Templars alike, shaping the world as it is today. They also seem able to influence events above ground and they are very angry with the world or at least with the elves. They will probably re-establish their contact/link with the dwarves.

Something is happening in Weisshaupt, the Wardens have gone silent, and a new Blight is most likely coming.

The Evanuris are still locked away, but it’s obvious they will get free soon. They are a bunch of homicidal assholes who will not think twice about conquering Thedas again. They might be also tainted by the Blight, if the theories “Evanuris locked away with the Blight in the Black City” are true.

If Kieran was born, Flemeth/Mythal took the Old God’s soul from him, planning to do something with it. We still don’t know what it is, but it’s unlikely she will stay “dead”. She still has to have her revenge, her “reckoning which will shake the very heavens”.

Either Morrigan or the Inquisitor drank from the Well of Sorrows and the consequences of that act are still unclear, but whatever they are, they are going to suck or at least be mildly disturbing.

Mysterious Dalish elves live in the Tirashan. They are violent, cruel, and worship the Forgotten Ones.

Strange people from the Volca Sea are returning after a long absence, claiming a terrible calamity struck their lands.

We still don’t know what lies beyond the Amaranthine Ocean, but whatever it is, it makes people go insane and suicidal.

Basically Thedas right now:

EXCUSE ME LOOK AT HOW HE'S LOOKING AT HER WHEN HE'S ABOUT TO LEAVE TO THE FADE. HE WANTS HER TO COME WITH HIM SO BADLY, HE WANTS HER SO BADLY BUT HE KNOWS HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO EVEN ASK THAT.

I'm not ok bye.

UHM EXCUSE ME but did any of you know that the elven woman from that Gaatlok barrel scene in Trespasser who turns out to be one of Solas’ agents is present in that very last cutscene at the Winter Palace when the Inquisitor declares the future of the Inquisition, standing all by herself behind a pillar in the back corner of the room eavesdropping without anyone noticing….. or was I supposed to discover this with the flycam just now???

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION EXTRACTS - SOLAS HEAD TURNAROUND

Eldest of the Sun. All-Father.

WEKRJERHUE:HKFSDKJ

im so glad this post came back around because ive been thinking of these tweets from trick from at least pre-2021 and how disappointing it is that the veil doesn’t come down in the game but wasn’t able to find them and wow

like holy shit. so what happened between THIS and the veilguard ending that shipped?????