#daimeta

[broodwoof]

Inquisition's "Bad Future" and its Relationship to Solas' POV

please do not add hate to this post, bring up the art book, or bring up the books/comics. thank you!

if you decide to recruit the mages to help seal the breach, then the inquisitor and dorian will be plunged into a "bad future", going forward a year

there is no way to proceed without "resetting" the timeline, without putting it back to the moment that they were flung into the future. but during the bad future, leliana says - accurately - that while dorian and the inquisitor see this almost as a bad dream, a thing to be undone, that it was real. their hurt was real. their joy was real. they existed in that year

and we as players are made complicit in erasing the entirety of that existence

this puts us in solas' position! this shows us his fundamental perspective!

he woke a year before the events of inquisiton, to a world that he, too, felt needed to be "reset". like the inquisitor and dorian, he saw the current state of the world as an intolerable deviation from what should be, and was willing to sacrifice people - as the inquisitor and dorian did - in order to put it back on the right path

granted, the world was in great peril in this bad future. the inquisition itself was destroyed. maybe many of those in southern ferelden would have welcomed the chance to have this all "undone"...

but what of those beyond? somewhere, a child was born in that year, and then erased. not killed, to be remembered, but fully erased from the course of history, made into something that never existed. somewhere in the world, someone did something that meant a great deal to them or to others in that year: again, that action was erased. they cannot be remembered, it cannot be remembered, it is gone

so, did the world need to be reset? i mean... that was probably the safest bet, if you want the world itself/the cultures as a whole/the people as a whole to have the best chance of survival

which, again, is kinda solas' thing. he's not out here just mercilessly killing for its own sake. he openly resents having to kill anybody, even enemies, although resenting it has certainly not stayed his hand

solas thought it would be necessary, which is something i've talked about before:

Solas and Veilfall: Why it Was Necessary... Until it Wasn't

Solas and Veilfall; Not a Hero, Not a Selfish Monster

"People are always dying. It is what they do." (contains an analysis of this bad future timeline as well!)

and what he was doing was necessary - perhaps not all of it (was tearing down the veil necessary or desired? it's unclear!) - but certainly dealing with the evanuris was necessary. even flemythal, who discouraged him from tearing down the veil, admitted that dealing with the "gods" was a necessary action. even the veilguard believe that what solas did in the time of arlathan was just and right

in the bad magic future, we are solas. we are waking to a world rendered horrible, a miserable experience compared to that which we knew. but, really, what all do we see? redcliffe castle. we hear about more, but it's just hearsay. in-game, it clearly doesn't take more than a day to erase that year in its entirety

what if the corruption was contained? what if there was an effort being mounted against it, one which might have been successful? what if all that remained of ferelden and orlais had joined forces? what if the dwarves had regained their ancestral magic somehow? what if spirits freely interacted with the world outside of this area of prime corruption?

hell, put all that aside: what if the corruption was false? what if everything we experience in that bad future was the work of a demon, or of alexius himself? what if having the inquisitor and dorian "undo" what he had done was his final effort to save felix? what if he created a horrific showpiece that presented a nightmare as reality and forced them to change it back?

is any of that likely? probably not! but the thing is: the inquisitor and dorian do not and cannot know

just as solas did not and could not know... in the beginning!

had his initial plan succeeded, he would have been as willing as the inquisitor and dorian to take that step. as confident that, even with the costs, it was right, it was just, it was necessary

i'm pretty sure more people do the mage route than the templar route. but whatever the analytics may say, certainly many people have done the mage route and have played through this entire narrative, up to and including erasing it and then continuing on with the game

and, narratively, it prepares us for solas' announcement. and it draws a comparison between the inquisitor and dorian and solas himself

and the thing is... the inquisitor and dorian remember that. as two individuals opposed to solas in some manner in canon, they also have to carry forward the knowledge that, in somewhat similar circumstances, they made the choice that solas tried to make. it is entirely likely that they bury this awareness, that they cover it, that they try to forget... but their actions remain, and the unknown cost remains, even though it has been erased

[storybookhawke]

This painting appears several places in Dragon Age Inquisition, and I have a headcanon about this man.

Karl Thekla writes a magical tome on force magic, both theory and practice, and unexpectedly but understandably gets attention among mages in all of Thedas, not just the south. Because of this, he is made to get a portrait painted for the back of his printed books since he's now a somewhat famous mage scholar.

That's why he looks unhappy because painting is a long process he didn't want, and Anders gives him a ton of shit over the silly little hat they made him wear for the portrait.

It's also one of the reasons why he is sent to Kirkwall's Circle, because it's the circle with the most mages specializing in force magic and thus a research powerhouse.

[enderevynne]

Evyllen [10/?]

🥺

[broodwoof]

Thoughts on the Solavellan emphasis in Veilguard

usual caveat that this is not @ anyone - i care about people who have expressed frustration with this, and i am not using this space to criticize any individual 💖 however, this is in response to generalized hatred towards solavellan shippers/the ship itself in fandom spaces

The short version is: I think the narrative emphasis on a solavellan worldstate makes perfect sense.

In DAI, all romances get closure. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this point, as I haven't gone through and fully done all of them, but all those I have done certainly have closure at the end. I'm including Trespasser as part of the DAI narrative arc, for clarity, but a lot of the relationships had a sense of closure even without the DLC.

Solavellan is the obvious, major exception.

Now, is Veilguard for Solavellan shippers? No! It is its own game, a narrative continuity of a series that has been going on for a long time. But Solas is a key character in both DAI - though we don't realize just how key for most of the game - and DAVG.

Solas being a key character means, by extension, Solavellan is a key romance. Note that I am not saying it is the "canon" romance. But Solavellan has ties to the overall narrative of both DAI and DAVG in a way no other DAI canon ship does. It's not necessary to the narrative of DAVG or the conclusion of the game, but it does play a significant role. As such, of course they paid more attention to it.

And what I said earlier, about closure? The only way for the Solavellan ship to gain closure is through concluding Solas' narrative arc - so it could not be achieved in DAI, only DAVG. For the original Solavellan shippers when the game was new, they've been waiting ten years - I think they're allowed a little excitement and satisfaction.

Now, would it have been nice for them to pay as much attention to the other romances the Inquisitor could have? Of course! I also imagine they wanted to. But game dev in general is a nightmare industry and this particular game went through so many hurdles. So I really can't blame them for focusing on developing the Inquisitor romance that had the most potential bearing on the plot of this game, and kind of losing the others.

None of this is to say that complaints about that are wrong or should not be made; rather, this post is directed at people who are angry at/blaming (somehow???) Solavellan shippers for the state of the game.

Similarly, it makes sense to me how Solavellan dominates the Solas shipping field. I'm a multishipper at heart and I love writing rarepairs with him, but honestly, every ship with him that isn't with a female Lavellan is a rarepair. And this is natural! It's about that lack of closure. People had a canon romance with their canon Inquisitor and they didn't get any closure on that relationship for ten years, of course they're going to be prevalent in fandom.

I just don't understand the deep frustration/outright hate at times for Solavellan as a ship or for Solavellan shippers. It's weird. Their - our - presence, even dominance, in fandom spaces has an obvious reason. You're allowed to not like it! To be disappointed or annoyed or whatever. I have no problem with that. But there are always people taking it too far.

Blaming a specific group of shippers in fandom spaces for the outcome of a videogame made by a big industry sure is a choice.

[broodwoof]

ooh saw a good post, queued it as i am the queue mutual, but it got me thinking about a lot of things

but very simply put: what we as dragon age players know has no relationship to what the characters know, and this is explicitly intentional

as players we gain access to a wealth of specific knowledge. but even we, as players, are not given hard truth all the time - the codices throughout all the games are written with a deliberate in-world bias

like the one codex that states that sexism does not exist in thedas, and then ppl getting upset because it obviously does? well.... gestures at our world.... bet you anything you could find countless modern articles saying that sexism does not exist/does not exist anymore/does not exist here, wherever 'here' is to the writer

have your feelings about it! but i'm just saying that the codices are deliberately written with bias. DAO literally gives you different codices depending on your race. treating them as Absolute Truth is going to lead to personal frustration when they are inevitably revealed to be limited, biased, and sometimes entirely wrong

the way the crows are written and talked about through the series vs. what we hear from one single character (zevran my beloved) who remains loyal to the crows while also trying to leave them while ALSO not wanting to display vulnerability vs. what we see from (one) particular house in veilguard so many in-game years after DAO... the way qunari are written about and how variable it is ("they're monsters" vs. "they have a real culture")... the way the grey warden order is discussed... the way that knowledge and opinion of magic varies wildly... the way that certain cultures handle their mages and magic being better, but other cultures not knowing or even deliberately suppressing that knowledge...

again, ppl will have their feelings about all of this and that's fine. but using a codex or something we as players learn from a prior game/dlc to point out a seeming "retcon" is not really engaging with some of the underlying themes of these games. the biases have been confirmed repeatedly. this was a real intent right from the inception of this series

and hey, it's natural! we literally play as the warden, as hawke, as the inquisitor, and now as rook. it's hard to set aside our knowledge from prior games. but in-game, within the narrative itself, those characters don't have deep knowledge of what the other characters do/have done. hawke certainly knows of the warden, but cannot recount every battle, every codex, every conversation the warden had with people. thus, hawke cannot make use of every bit of knowledge the warden - and we as players - gained through that game. further, hawke's understanding of what the warden did is colored by biased recountings and an emphasis on certain story beats over others

in DAI, in early conversation with cassandra, she tells the inquisitor about the time she "single-handedly" slayed a dragon... and how twisted that story had become over its retellings. and, i mean, solas' everything. the evanuris. but i like referencing cassandra in this because this is something that happened in a single lifetime, yet has already grown into a fanciful tale that discounts a huge amount of what actually happened

she knows that mages helped save the day and protect the divine. we know that, too. but the world of thedas? the vast majority of those who know the story do not know that mages helped. and, again, this was within one lifetime. many who know the story were alive when the real event took place. but it doesn't matter! because they weren't there, and they're hearing about it from other people, who heard about it from other people, and so on, and at various points things were dropped or added

and, hell, the entirety of DA2 is a story told by varric to cassandra. i know some people get frustrated with considering that aspects of it may have been falsified because that makes it hard to figure out the truth (and that's fair!), but i think it's worth acknowledging that this narrative direction was not only intentional, but utterly explicit. we literally see varric telling cassandra the story of DA2

[broodwoof]

Solas - Lavellan and the Dalish

two very important points before we proceed: this is an in-universe examination. purely watsonian rather than doylist. i will not be examining any of the ethics of any decisions at a company/industry level, okay? other people have done so, and done better than i could as with all my meta, this is based on my own interpretations. i believe there is canonical precedence for these views, but i also acknowledge that canon is deeply subjective and interpretive

essentially, i think that solas ends up quite accepting of the dalish. he definitely doesn't start that way though! it's a process

solas makes his feelings about the dalish clear immediately. he is condescending and dismissive. he seems to treat them like naive, errant children. he is, of course, struggling a lot with seeing them in a genuine way, because he is seeing what they were, and - very importantly! - he is seeing them wearing the vallaslin again, as a way to honors their creators

this post is not about dalish faith or culture, not really. all i'll say on it is that what they developed into and what they found meaning in is completely fair and nothing i write here is a condemnation of their culture or their faith

now, solas. we learn from veilguard that he did reveal himself as fen'harel to one clan, eventually convincing them, and was driven out. i can't recall the specifics of his explanation (sad), but certainly this was an early encounter with the dalish, and perhaps his first. it would have given him a strong opinion about these modern elves

and then, yeah, the vallaslin. they are wearing slave markings and they don't know it. they are honoring the evanuris as gods, as the literal creators of all that is good and just in the world, praying to them, and the evanuris were slave-owners. they specifically enslaved the ancestors of the elven, of the dalish

it's worth keeping in mind that solas woke only one year before the events of inquisition, to a world that was fundamentally foreign to him. a split world rather than the connected one he had known. and it is his fault... at the same time, it truly appears to have been an accident. the evanuris needed to be dealt with. even the veilguard companions admire what solas did back then

the veil, while accidental, was of course hugely destructive. the very people he was trying to save were killed en masse

it is my personal belief that he entered uthenera very shortly after creating the prison and drawing the veil (possibly even succumbing to it immediately as a result of the magical expenditure), but even if he had entered uthenera later on, his grief would still be very fresh

because as much as arlathan and the elvhen were hit the hardest - since arlathan was interwoven with the fade, and the separation caused physical reactions, structural collapses, etc - the entire world would have been impacted as well. it's not going to be running smoothly and settling into the new norm in a weeks time, y'know? i genuinely can't imagine how long it would take for things to even begin to stabilize and recover, but we're not looking at an insignificant amount of time, not at all

so, where we're at: solas deals with the evanuris, preventing them from taking over the world and blighting it (a good thing!); in the doing, he accidentally creates the veil, destroying arlathan and killing so many elvhen; he also impacts the entire world with this fundamental change

so whether he sleeps immediately or later on, he will still have memories of a world that lived, even if it was flawed (and he knew it was flawed, and knew how deeply flawed it was!) that was transformed into a world that, to his eyes and in his horrified guilt, must have looked like it had died

then he sleeps for so long, and wakes to a world that has stabilized, yes, but he can find nothing familiar within it. he can find no depth. he talks about moving through a world of tranquil... which sounds cruel, and i'm not saying it isn't, but to me this is a clear form of derealization

so, he makes a plan. he is wisdom, and fixing the problems of this mortal realm is what he was called upon to do. he determines a course of action. if putting up the veil doomed the world, then removing it would heal it. and if he must damage the facsimile that has grown up in its place, he will regret that, too, but it is a small price to pay...

but, that's the thing. it isn't. and the derealization is contested again and again. even by arguing with modern people, he is discovering their depth; even by challenging them, he is discovering that they are real. they do not conform to the hollow impression he has built of them in his mind

but his goal... he needs to heal the world. that is his responsibility. because he destroyed it, yes; to avenge mythal, yes; but also because - as with the wisdom -> pride spirit in dai - it is literally what he was called upon to do

if this breaks containment, i need to specify something. i do not think mythal used him or abused him. i do not think she bound him, to his body or to her will. i think she truly, deeply cares about him, and i think she is being entirely earnest when she says she loves him. i think that solas came willingly, because she asked him to

but i also do think that it destroyed him. corrupted him. it corrupted her, too; summoning this gentle spirit she had known and relied upon, and seeing him twisted by the impossibility of their situation. it never had to be malicious, and i don't think it was; it never had to be about using him carelessly, and i don't think it was. but mythal could not stem the tide on her own, and she needed his wisdom, and it broke him

all that being said... he was a spirit, and i think that as he took form, that call to duty was embodied within him. he is here to heal the world. that is his fundamental duty. that is the way he will fulfill his promise to the woman he loves, the spirit he has long admired, and to his own nature, which is a powerful need for a spirit

"brood this is supposed to be about the dalish?" yes!

he encounters modern elves, wearing slave markings with pride. only some gifted with magic and that magic being far weaker than anything they'd had before, and, if all that wasn't bad enough, they are a deeply oppressed people. by the time you journey to skyhold - and likely far earlier - solas is aware that the modern elves are oppressed and demonized. not only did his efforts to liberate the enslaved from their slavers result in the deaths of many he was trying to help, but their descendants are now struggling to make it in a world they ought to have ruled (note: i don't think solas is big on any kind of one-race-ruling-others stuff, but i do think that would be a thought that passes through his mind)

so, yes, he wants to gives the elven what the elvhen had. he wants to give them back their immortality, their magic, their power, their ability to defend themselves. he does not want to recreate arlathan, of course not. what he wants in the modern age is exactly what he wanted in arlathan era; to give the elves freedom to make their own society, free and empowered

right now, everything the dalish are, even in appearance (the vallaslin), is nothing but a reminder of his own worst moments. he knows how to remove the vallaslin, and no one can convince me that he doesn't look at lavellan and recall the expressions of those elvhen who let him remove the markings

just the same... when he offers to remove lavellan's vallaslin, she can say no, and he will not press. he won't insist. and when she worries about his opinion of her, he immediately comforts her. i don't think this is a minor moment, to be swept aside; i think that this is, in many ways, the culmination of solas' growth and acceptance of the dalish. it is also a moment of immense internal conflict for him

[word of god part] he took her to that grotto to tell her the truth of himself. all of it. to trust another dalish with his real name, his real identity, his real history. when they approached that spot, they were easy, gentle, soft. he held her hand. he was at peace

and then... he couldn't. duty reared up when the words were in his throat, and he pivoted. he told her about the vallaslin. he offered to remove it. and if she agrees, he does, but if she says no, he affirms that decision, too. they both know what the marks are. they both know what they mean. and with all that knowledge out in the open, he pretty much says: i know these are important to you. i know that in your eyes - in your culture - they have become something else. i will not insist on removing them. i will not seek to "fix" you

don't get me wrong; he breaks up with her right after. i've written meta on that, too, and how brutally cruel it is to her. because the end of that relationship is now twisted around the truth about her vallaslin, and from a player pov we know that neither choice would have him stay with her, but she doesn't. either she let him remove it, lets him remove that which marks her as specifically dalish, and then leaves her; or she does not let him remove it, she keeps the vallaslin that were once used as slave markings, and he leaves her. in her position, she cannot do anything but associate the two

but i do think that was the cumulative moment for solas, on many levels. on the balcony, he accepts lavellan. or any inquisitor. and he is, by that point, on his way to accepting their culture. he isn't entirely there yet

but later, in the grotto - admittedly somewhere he can only be with a female lavellan, but i think it's not unfair to extrapolate this acceptance to other inquisitor backgrounds, because he has by this point experienced so much more of this modern world - he accepts her, yes, but he also accepts her culture

and accepting her culture is, i think, what so terrifies him. is she was an exception... if the inquisitor, whoever they are, was an exception... then he could still do what he must

but to face the cold hard truth that they are not an exception? that they are special to him, but they aren't special, not in a way that every other person currently living in this world was also and equally special? if that is true, then... he has to stop

and he can't stop

so he leaves

an exception can be mourned. remembered. perhaps even saved, spared. but having to face the knowledge that everyone he is willing to potentially doom ("potentially" because i still don't think he knew what bringing the veil down would do, not really. he certainly feared the outcome, but i don't think he could know what the outcome would be) is equally deep, that there are no exceptions, that such depth is the rule...

crestwood was his pivotal moment. not only in his relationship, but in himself. he brought lavellan there to tell her the truth

in that moment, he had to choose:

am i solas?

or am i fen'harel?

and he could not bring himself to set down the duty and all it meant, all it contained, all it implied

so he tells himself: i am fen'harel

but he's solas. he's always been solas

and it is solas who tells the inquisitor some of his plans during trespasser, enough that they will inevitably pursue him. it is solas who guides them to the awareness that it is fen'harel they face; because he wants to be seen, known, yes, but also to equip them for what will come

"here is my bleeding heart, inquisitor. if you approach, i will attack - i can't not, and you must be prepared - but i hope you approach, and i hope your aim is true"

[broodwoof]

solas/calpernia (solpernia) and why they appeal to me so much:

both are staunchly opposed to slavery, to the point of making it their respective life missions to eradicate it

both are willing to take extreme measures to see the world restored - in solas' case, restoration of the old, connected world; in calpernia's, restoration of tevinter as being a worthy place, one which values all its people

if solas learned about calpernia in detail, i think he would admire her efforts to educate herself even while in active slavery

i don't think calpernia would have strong anti-elf sentiments, given that many slaves in tevinter are elves - i might be wrong about this, she might have internalized bigotry, but i don't think it'd be so pronounced that it'd get in the way of learning to respect solas

calpernia turning against corypheus would show a strength of will that i am convinced solas would admire

solas has a long history of freeing slaves, yes, but also possibly of spending time with them afterwards - maybe not much time or often, but enough to understand some of their difficulties after being liberated

he would admire the network calpernia has built up, and would particularly admire her efforts to free more slaves - and avenge those who are mistreated

both value magic, and i suspect that calpernia would enjoy listening to solas speak on the subject of magic and the fade

solas had ample experience with using militaristic strategies to effect change; i don't think he would overly judge calpernia's use of the venatori as an instrument of change, although he wouldn't approve of it, either

any relationship between them would require that calpernia turn her back on corypheus, and would be aided significantly by calpernia joining the inquisition, either outright or through lending them aid

that kind of change takes courage, and he would admire that

but i think she would need to be the one to pursue him

which i can see her doing, particularly if she does join the inquisition outright, because i can see solas being the one to treat her the most normally

[broodwoof]

..........i just had a really good idea for blog organization

#broodmeta + #solasmeta / #mythalmeta / etc

#broodmeta + #daometa / #da2meta / #daimeta / #davgmeta ???

i liked what i was doing originally with the masterpost with links, but i hit the link limit aklfjsklf

tried a different approach but ngl i kinda hate it and i DEFINITELY hate upkeep on it...

but this seems easy!!!

might play around with the mass tag changer thingy

[broodwoof]

dai/trespasser spoilers are untagged

#dao | #da2 | #da4 / #davg

#jaws of hakkon | #joh

#the descent

#blood | #gore

#characterfirstname | exceptions: #the iron bull ; #harding ; #johanna hezenkoss

#shipname | major ships: #solavellan ; #solythal ; #solrook ; #solrookvellan ; solar'nan ; solarric (note: I will NOT tag silly little off the cuff posts about ships with the shipname, but I will include it in the body of the post. so if you're avoiding, say, solrook, then please utilize the post content filter as well)

rarely used

#artbook spoilers

#the masked empire | #masked empire

#tevinter nights

#the calling

#solasmeta #mythalmeta #viviennemeta #wardenmeta #hawkemeta #inkymeta #rookmeta

#solythalmeta #solavellanmeta

#daometa #da2meta #daimeta #davgmeta

#arlathanmeta #thedasmeta

#evanurismeta

#elgar'nanmeta #ghilan'nainmeta

#andersmeta #avelinemeta #bethanymeta #carvermeta

[enderevynne]

Blackwall romance vs. Cullen romance - The Winter Palace

In the cutscene episodes I’m making for myself, I have both of these scenes in as if they��re not two separate playthroughs. (lol, I have two different characters in them as twins as if they’re in the same story, so...)

I just love the juxtaposition of these two romances, especially knowing the kind of character Evynne is. 

She absolutely loathes the idea that people think of her as the chosen one. She wants no part in it, hates that it wasn’t her choice, but despite that she wants to help and will try to use the power it gives her to change things for the better. 

But the burden of it weighs heavily on her, to the point where she feels as if she’s disappearing. 

And as much as she cares for Blackwall, the second he told her “Whoever you were is gone”, it sealed the deal for whatever relationship they could have had. She stays with him after that, but her heart is not in it. 

Not only because it’s already with Cullen, which she is not remotely ready to deal with due to him being a former Templar, but also because Blackwall doesn’t really see her. 

He sees the Herald, the Chosen, the Inquisitor. He all but worships her. And he’s hiding something and playing games, which she makes clear she hates. 

Even here, at the end of the Winter Palace quest, he talks about her being a hero and how many men and women want time with her. And she just cannot handle it. He admits she’s earned time for herself then asks her to dance. And she just feels like an object, yet again. 

Then, Cullen comes outside. He talks to her as a person in her own right, not the product of some magic gone wrong which has now made her the object on which the fate of the world depends. 

He asks how she is, confesses he was worried about her. And then, with that shy damn smile, he admits he might never get another chance to ask her to dance. Knowing how much he loathes dancing. And it just brings joy to my heart to hear how immediate and eager her “of course!” is. It actually made me emotional. 

I knew when she started with Blackwall that she was going to end up with Cullen, but I couldn’t have begun to imagine how organically it would actually develop like that - how actually perfect Cullen and Evynne are together. 

This is one long-ass post to cry about my Evynne and to say dEAR GOD I LOVE CuLLEN SO SO SO SO SOOOO MUCH.

[enderevynne]

We need to talk about Solas - [Part 1]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

SPOILER ALERT FOR DRAGON AGE 4 

ALSO DO NOT SPOIL ME ABOUT THIS I HAVEN’T GOTTEN FAR PAST ADAMANT YET

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

So. There have been several moments with Solas that have... caught my attention. 

The first one bothers me the most, because I can’t remember what it was. 

I remember reacting like whoa wait a minute, but can’t remember about what. I am truly a treasure. 

I’m gonna have to do another playthrough with both Ender and Evynne because I also can’t remember with which character it was. (Luckily I haven’t played my other two characters yet, cause that would’ve been a disaster...) 

Anyway. Back to this. 

A few days or so ago I came across a spoiler about Solas and Dragon Age 4. It was huge but not detailed. He will apparently be the villain, as far as I understood the text my eyes swept past for half a second. 

Now, with both Ender and Evynne I’ve only gotten through Adamant and a while after. So I truly don’t know how this is going to end, nor have I been ready to find out the few times I’ve decided to go to the War Room to start the “What Pride Had Wrought” mission. I always go back and focus more on the plentiful sidemissions and to continue putting together the cutscene episodes. Which means I have to go back and replay several scenes in the right clothes and/or hairstyles and/or makeup.

I was not terribly surprised to learn this spoiler about Solas. He’s been... fishy sometimes. Like Blackwall, except not remotely like Blackwall cause Blackwall is in your face all the time about the fact that he’s hiding something and it seems pretty darn clear what that something is going to be. I will be shocked if I’m wrong about it. But I hope I will be. At least about part of it. 

So. Let’s talk about this moment with Solas. 

It took me a while (an embarrasingly long one but oh well) to realize why this moment bothered me. 

And then it clicked while putting it into the cutscene episodes. 

“An enemy can attack but only an ally can betray you. SPEAKING OF WHICH, YOU SHOULD READY YOURSELF.” 

He’s telling me an ally is going to betray me. Cause Corypheus - a name we still haven’t learned in this moment, remember - is certainly no ally. 

Right? 

We know the Elder One is an enemy. 

...RIGhT???

But Solas is saying... the Elder One is an ally? 

Does this mean Corypheus is not actually the Elder One? 

Does that mean SOLAS is the fucking Elder One?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Goddammit I’m not sure I want to find out. I both want and don’t want this to be true. I love Solas so much. If this, or something like it is true, it’s gonna destroy me. And I know, thanks to that spoiler, I am going to be destroyed. Not sure if it’s because this theory turns out to be the case, or something else happens to make that spoiler happen. 

But this? Goddamn. Send help.

[storybookhawke]

I wish there were better, more interesting options for Samson’s judgement. Some of them don’t even make sense, and some of them don’t really give information about what they mean?

Like, when it says given to Dagna for scientific study, does that mean Samson is basically imprisoned but Dagna can come get him for experiments for whatever? Or does it mean he dies and she gets his body. 

“Remand to Kirkwall for judgment” why would Kirkwall be any better for his sentencing? I get he was once a templar there, but that’s kind of it? The Inquisition has more power and reason to sentence the General of the Red Templars himself.

“Exiling him to the wilderness” ???? Yeah let’s just push this man who has enhanced physical strength back into the wilderness where, who knows, maybe one of his men can go pick him up. seems like execution with extra steps.

I like the “conscript him into the Inquisition with Cullen as his handler” because it makes the most sense (other than just flat imprisonment), even though I’d like to know exactly what he’d be doing. He’s still a massive wartime criminal. What could he be doing?? Could he escape? Could he hurt others? What would Cullen be doing in this situation? Tell me more, damn it.

[storybookhawke]

Telling Time in Thedas

bc i wanna talk about clocks n shit

Mechanical Clocks - canon

There is a modern mechanical clock in the Winter Palace, also extracted from the game’s files called the “Maid Clock.” Gaider has also confirmed that clocks indeed exist, though not universally owned. The technology is dwarven-made and thus difficult to come by. Also, there are clocks that are in Orlais, and one could reasonably assume that perhaps there might be a public clock in a city square or in the Winter Palace or a rich noble’s estate.

Sundials  - canon

You can find sundials around in Origins, for example in the Circle Tower, which is slightly ironic since one would have to be outdoors to get direct sunlight, and outside Orzammar’s gates. Also consider how sundials may not be the most useful in cloudy places in Thedas or in places that do not get much direct sun light dense forests. Or at night...

Moondials - likely canon but not useful

If there are sundials, it’s believable that moondials (or lunardials) exist as well. However, they’re only correct on the night of a full moon. However Thedas has two moons (though only seen together on certain nights) so light being cast from two different angles would most likely make the reading near impossible. So once the sun goes down, one could reasonably say that telling time becomes considerably more difficult.

Hourglass - canon

You can also see these in various spots in the games, though they are not nearly as useful to the average person as a clock or sundial. It’s rare even now to find an hourglass that measures more than one hour, and it would have to be manually turned to use as a time-telling device versus a time-tracking device.

Water clocks - canon

Varric mentions one. Water clocks, though they can be made with other viscous materials like sand, are like hourglasses but can be made to measure more than one hour at a time. They rely on water moving from one pot or bucket to another slowly but steadily, with each mark in the receiving bucket denoting an hour has passed. It functions just as an hourglass would, though could not give the time of day, just how long has passed since it was started. Also, these can freeze, so they’re not great to be used everywhere.

Candle clocks - likely canon

Candle clocks are candles that are made from certain slower-burning wax where notches or marks are made for every hour that the candle burns. It’s by no means exact, but it’s reasonable for a character who often uses the same type of candles to look at how far it has burned and estimate “it’s been about an hour and a half.” It’s a casual time-tracking system, for certain, but not a time-telling one. Not a clock but a timer, like a water clock and an hourglass.

Extra: thoughts about Public Time-Keeping via Bell Towers

It’s quite possible that many cities and towns have a bell tower, either in a city square (like many of the spires in Val Royeaux) or perhaps in the local Chantry. One could assume that the person in charge of ringing a city or chantry bell each hour, on the hour, would have a clock or sundial to go by. Historically there were many ways bells were used in the keeping of time--for example, some places only rang the bell from sunrise to sundown and thus made nighttime time-keeping difficult, or other places that changed how long an ‘hour’ might last depending on the season (and thus the number of daylight hours). Thedas could do any number of these things.

[storybookhawke]

think of the fereldens who became templars because they felt they were forced between that and their families starving. think of the orphans who met a templar recruiter who told them the only way out of the orphanage was to join the order.

its a concept i see in high schools all the time. minority and poor students feeling forced to go into the military because they will otherwise not get a stable job with pay/benefits with what the world has already set against them