What would it take to change Solas' mind?

With enough pressure, you can change his mind…


…from On to Off.

It's a question I have constantly asked myself. I also don't understand how that equates to "redeeming" him. Proving him wrong is not the same as redemption. Then in the final scene we instead say: "We've going to save our friend from himself." Again, one wonders how?

To date this has been the only answer I can come up with. He obviously knew way more about the origins of the Blights and the Old Gods than he was prepared to admit. I do find it curious that both the Promissors and Drakon's vision seem to suggest that the world would only be restored to pristine beauty through cleansing with fire. However, may be everyone is taking this too literally and what it actually needs is some sort of spiritual cleansing, which curiously enough Solas actually might be able to help with.

There is also the problem that he thinks the elves are fractured from their true selves and can only be restored by having the Veil removed. That is a more tricky one but may be we can find an answer in the whole Rite of Tranquility and its "cure". After all, we had always been led to believe that the Rite was a permanent sundering from the Fade and yet Karl, temporarily, and Pharamond, permanently, were able to be restored by bringing a bit of the Fade to them, via a spirit. Perhaps Solas could be persuaded to create some sort of localised effect in just one remote region of Thedas or a pocket realm like the Crossroads, where elves could go if they chose to be restored. So a new elven homeland of a different nature.

Of course, that doesn't take into account what Mythal wants in all this. Even if we manage to get Solas to change his mind, she might have other ideas.

I think it could be a reverse situation of DAO's ending. A baby born from a dark ritual was the key to saving a warden's life. What if a ordinary baby could be the key to the survival... of the world.

What if there was something (or someone) Solas was unwilling to lose? It's not his lover, friends, the dalish, alienages, "fake" elves, or even some ancient elves (I think he'd consider some of them expendable if it meant achieving whatever greater goal he has).

But what if he had a child, his own flesh and blood? In a playthrough with a female elf inky that romanced him, they can reveal that they have an offspring. In any other playthrough, an elf npc, a former lover, can reveal the same to Solas.

It's cheesy, but I think killing his own blood is one of the few things that he wouldn't do. Another thing I think he deeply values are spirits. Their purity is very dear to him. However they can be easily corrupted... so what if destroying the veil is too traumatic for the spirits? They've lived separate from Thedas for so long that suddenly being reintroduced back into the "physical" world could warp them forever (and not in the way he hopes/intends). We saw what just 1-2 breaches and lots of tears could do to hundreds, maybe even thousands, of spirits. If he tore the entire veil down it could corrupt all of them before the Fade and Thedas could be fully reintegrated. I don't think he knows how to fully reverse/heal the corruption once it has occurred.

tl;dr a potential baby and/or spirits being corrupted en masse due to traumatic re-entry into Thedas, could potentially give him reason to not destroy the world as we know. But at the same time, such an earthshaking event could be what the writers need to remake the world (and all the characters and lore it entails), so they might just let Solas succeed - at least partially. I'm sorry, it's been 5 years since I played DAI, so I could be forgetting something!

I suggested something similar to this on another thread but the child would have nothing to do with Lavellan; they would be an ancient elf companion. Solas wouldn't be aware he had a kid, it was something from the wild reckless days of his youth, but they would know much about his past, including the bits he's conveniently forgotten. May be them opposing his plan and telling him who they are, might get through to him.

The other possibility is the line that Rasaan, the Ariqun in waiting, is pursuing concerning his true name. Not sure if that is intended to be some sort of Kryptonite that will render him powerless or whether reminding him of what he once was will make him stop what he is doing.


This could be something that would sway him. I think it was Cole who told us that the spirits were as fearful of the Breach as we were, because sucking them through warped them, so many of the demons we encountered this side hadn't started off that way. So, as you say above, suddenly taking away the entire Veil could have disastrous consequences for the spirits after they have lived for so long cut off from the Waking World. It just seems odd that he hasn't considered this but it wouldn't be the first time he has taken action without fully considering the consequences. What we might need to counter him in that case is a powerful Hope spirit, who can make him acknowledge the potential consequences to all creation from his proposed plan and thus live up to their name in giving hope to everyone. Hope spirits are extremely rare but also the most powerful of all the benign spirits.

Maybe if there's an Ancient Elvhen faction that either defected from Solas group and/or don't agree with what Solas plans on doing? Surely, Felassan is not the agent of Solas?

Or it could just be like many JRPGs and just tell Solas to have faith in the new generation after proving their strength.

What would it take? Kill him. Make him tranquil. The Joining to be a grey warden. He ends up banishing himself because his hocus pocus whatever backfires.

Because some people are just too stupid and trusting, or possibly too afraid to say no. Those who did object are now stone statues. What with them and what he did to Felassan, the word probably gets around.

Some of them were none too pleased with their leader in ancient times but unfortunately they died when their world literally fell apart around them. Since Fen'Harel rules the Fade, their spirits probably didn't have much chance of getting revenge on him either.

And some of them are fanatics as evidenced by the stories in Tevinter Nights and they have the same sort of tunnel vision that Solas does. It could be they will wait until they get their power back and then they will take their revenge on him, or at least that is the plan, but they probably can't believe it would backfire on them a second time.

I've had another thought about the spirit aspect. We don't know the precise nature of elves and their relation to the Fade but there is some sort of possibility that perhaps some part of each ancient elf is trapped there or that the way he intends for them to survive is through their spirit self. So essentially they hang out in the Fade in their spiritual form until he has finished reshaping reality. Now there was a David Gemmell story, Dark Moon, where the enemy race didn't fear death because they had a fresh self to be reborn into back at their home base. I won't spoil it for anyone who wants to read the book but suffice to say if you could demonstrate that their spirit selves wouldn't survive or were already destroyed, then what would be the point of continuing? If he truly wanted to preserve the elves, he would have to settle for improving the lot of the elves in the present. Something like that, anyway.