#solas’ dagger

[ar-ghilas-vir-banal]

There.

[lostiel]

[andarateia]

It's the slow knife that cuts deepest.

(The last thing I made before I went offline for four months!)

[corseque]

I'm sorry if other people saw and talked about this already, but I just noticed something

Solas has the knife in his right hand here when the statues are falling

He also has it when he's casting the spell to stop the statue

Varric is right beside Solas and the statue is falling on both of them.

There's an explosion that's either a different pov of the same spell Solas cast or a separate explosion (of the veil opening?) (I can't tell)

This explosion causes several huge rocks to fall in all directions. None of the rocks or debris glow.

Then we see Solas looking down toward where Varric was standing and where Rook now is, when the statue was falling toward him in the other direction.

Varric was behind Solas, and is now nowhere to be seen.

And after the explosion, Solas does not have the dagger in his hand.

There is nothing glowing on the ground here when Varric is backing up as the statues are falling, but there is a glowing object that is giving off green sparks, resting on a dark object at the bottom of the stairs JUST after the explosion.

The only thing in the scene that glows green in that color and gives off green sparks is the dagger.

I think Solas must have lost the dagger.

And it might have landed down near Rook.

And I can't tell what the dark object is under the glowing one, but either the glow makes it look like it's moving, or it's moving. Is it Varric? Did Varric fall all the way down the stairs? Did Solas lose both the dagger and his friend got hurt?

And that's why he's looking so sad down in the "wrong" direction? He was worried about Varric, or the dagger flew down that way? Both?

The whole sequence is very strange in 0.25 speed, almost like parts of it were cut out for this trailer. If Varric is not that dark shape at the bottom of the stairs, where exactly did Varric go? Where did the dagger go?

The only detail I know for sure is that Solas doesn't have the dagger anymore when he's facing the evanuris.

[bossuary]

So, the companions each have their dialogue with Solas as you make the endgame push to confront Elgar'nan.

But I...see, I have a question about whether or not that's the first time any of them interact with him after Tearstone. Does the game make it clear where Solas emerges when he escapes from the regret prison? Because if he comes out where Rook went IN...hooboy.

Rook gets blasted into the I've Made a Huge Mistake Museum. Solas takes the dagger from them and cuts his way back into the world. Does Solas come out...like...right there where Rook got zapped?

Because I am dying for that scene.

Really just NEED TO KNOW what the companions say to Captain Inevitable Betrayal when he pops out of the Fade without Rook.

As Solas strides past whoever is left on Tearstone Island, giving the corpse of Ghilan'nain one of his patented Sad Smiles...

Does Taash take a flaming berserker run at him? Nevermind getting swatted away, just rolling back up onto their feet, smoke billowing.

Does Emmrich set his jaw against incivility, swallowing the thousand forbidden curses he has called to mind in favor of a reasonable greeting or question?

Does Harding crackle with an unyielding blue power as she lifts a wall of stone in his way, demanding answers as a titan, as a friend?

Does Lucanis move to strike when Taash moves--he and Spite having adapted to the benefits of a pack hunt--with a godkiller tremor still pulsing in his limbs?

Does Bellara appeal to memory, to who Solas was, her voice strengthened by the hardest-earned lessons, to ask where Wisdom can be found in any of this destruction?

Does Neve look at the faint scratches on his ancient armor, the tension in the way he grips the dagger, and ask Solas to explain why power makes him think he's right.

Do Davrin and Assan block the way as they were always meant to, a last line of defense between Solas and the world he intends to destroy?

[doraingrid]

Responsibility

[jadeinretrogrde]

solas could straight up be trying to hand me a stick of lit dynamite and I'd be like sure babe whatever you need

[librarydilf]

This is Alec's canon response and also one of my favorite Solas moments in the game. I LOVE the reactions you get from him when you come at him with the more upfront, furious options in act 3. Rook completely has the read on him here and Solas has lost the leverage he's been using to manipulate them. WHAT A MOMENT WHAT A SITUATION.

[bas-taard]

now wait a second

[mrs-gauche]

So I just woke up and saw this

.......and I have so many thoughts and questions, but all I can think of right now is this

[treviso-nights]

it's actually bonkers that solas takes one look at rook for being sad about harding/davrin's death and goes *scoffs* unworthy!! foolish!!! the absolute baffoonery!!! you were never ready to make the sacrifices that leadership requires!!!! grieving for your friend????? COULD NOT BE ME!!!!!! before drop-kicking them into the most fucked up sleep paralysis episode

[ar-ghilas-vir-banal]

Obligatory Fang selfie.

Heck.

[lostiel]

in love with this ship template by @zenruu 🫶

[andarateia]

Dragon Age shelf update

[shoutydwarf]

Veilguard ending spoilers

It's so hard for me to talk about how I feel about Solas because on one hand, there's great potential in his arc, but on the other, bioware has completely butchered that in such a profound way that I don't care to look past the hiccups to enjoy him.

First, he's race locked. This really doesn't help to contest the idea that he's a supremacist. If it was truly a time crunch issue where they added it so late they couldn't add the other races, but knew at the time what Solas was and what he meant to the plot - why, on gods green fucking earth, was it included at all? Because they spend the whole next game trying really hard to convince you he's not just an ages old racist stuck in his ways, only to not just have race locked him but to hide his most egregious act, of which he committed against a certain race he's known to be racist towards.

You'll be hard pressed to catch a certain type of solavellan, which encompasses the majority of them, even saying the word titan. The part that baffles me is you'll also be hard pressed to hear SOLAS HIMSELF saying it in game. If I'm recalling correctly, I only heard him say it one singular time outside of the mural memories. At the very end of the game.

There is zero acknowledgement on his part of what he did, at least not in any meaningful way. The orb that the evanuris made their foci out of that Solas says is an elven artifact? Titan heart. The dagger he made? Titan blood. The empire of Arlathan? Founded on the blood and genocide of titans. And I mean that in the most literal sense that I can. All of their godly powers that they used to create their empire was pulled from the well of titan souls they locked within the Golden City.

It's fucking poetic at this point. They silenced the titans so good and well that it seems not even Solas remembers what his glorious kingdom of old cost. It's even funnier if you stand in front of him as a Cadash or a dwarf!Rook.

This man they're trying SO HARD to beat into you around every corner that he's so so sad, he's so so full of regret and sorrow, he's so depressed and anguished over his deeds, not once acknowledges in a way that matters that what he and the evanuris did to the titans was wrong. And if he doesn't feel remorse over that in any way that's loud enough for him to talk about it as he does the veil, how the fuck am I supposed to believe he's sorry for all the other things?

Weekes has admitted to literally, somehow, casually forgetting dwarves don't dream when they were writing the scene of the Haven dream with Solas and the Inquisitor. Add this to how many lines dwarf!rook has of comparing things to dreams, casting necromancy spells etc and it becomes pretty clear that they never intended to afford this genocided race lore reveal the gravity it needed. They just needed it as a minor plot device in a greater elven narrative that completely, utterly, 100% unravels the message they're desperate to send with Solas. They really said to solavellans don't worry, kittens, he committed a really heinous, unforgivable act that he's not taking any strides to repair but we're not going to have him talk about it at all so you can continue ignoring it and scrolling tiktok during Harding's questline. And yall said okay ❤️ yay ❤️.

And no, you can't argue that his goal was always to tear down the Veil to restore immortality/magic to the elves AND wake up the titans. Because those are two separate things, and one of those things he never once said he was doing. He doesn't need the titans awake to take down the Veil and restore Arlathan. In fact, he very much needs them to stay tranquil, otherwise he'd finally get the ass whooping he fucking deserves when my dwarves not only attack his unguarded kneecaps with hammers but start chucking rocks at him and booing loudly.

This is why he's irredeemable for me. This is why I wanted an ending where I can kill him, not because I hate him as a concept or even as a character, but because his writing is such a fucking joke. And putting him into a sock and banging him against the counter is the only valid response to such a cosmic fumble because it's the only option that matches its freak in being so ridiculous. It's bad writing, it's weak, cheap, lazy, and directly crumbles the entire foundation.

While the ending of having him spend eternity soothing the dreams of the titans is excellent in form, because although it doesn't show him taking accountability it does show him taking steps to repair the damage he did to them, I don't ever get to establish, as a dwarf Rook or even just as a player, that THAT is why I want him to do this. Nobody says, "Make this right by earning the forgiveness of your first victim." Instead, for Solas, it's like, "well, since I have to go there anyway, I might as well. I guess. Whatever."

All this while they're in that AMA saying shit like "two groups are more affected than any other by the evanuris - the elves and (wait for it) Tevinter."

A fucking joke, I tell you.

[sacredashes]

thinking about how mythal is visualized with and connected to the moon, but elgar’nan describes himself as the lord of day and night and can literally control the sun and moon to cause an eclipse. her role in the evanuris as a peacekeeper, immortalizing her as mother and wife forever. how flemeth described herself as nothing “but a shadow, lingering in the sun.” how when the mythal fragment trapped in the fade describes solas’s regrets, it’s recollections “cultivated like a tree twisting to catch the sun.” elgar’nan being the main person described whenever talking about mythal’s first death. how she reveals herself primarily to women who are hurt and abused by men over and over throughout history, reliving betrayal after betrayal for centuries…