The Blanketfort (crying and throwing up) - The Official Solas Thread [Spoilers]

There's no talk of the Dalish offending "Solas's standards", that's not what they're apologizing for   They're willing to take it on themselves to make amends in case some Dalish didn't act well towards Solas.

He didn't need Inquisitor to reach out to the Dalish entirely on his own, and possibly multiple times, while elves like Abelas are like "meh, you're just shadows wearing vallaslin"...

Also - the Dalish have problems. Sorry, but they just do; if they can even be spoken about as a whole and not a very scattered populace with different attitudes towards outside world. In that regard they're not that different compared to other groups in Thedas. Their actions and attitudes can be justified due to years of oppression, but not all of them, like frequent disdain towards 'flat-ears' to whom they can feel superior to (even Lavellan can say "We're the last true elves!" to Solas... which I honestly wanted to smack her for when I tested that response. Gee, no true Scotsman much?).

What probably stuns people is that Solas doesn't think of the Dalish that much differently from others, in a sense that he doesn't really elevates them to a special place, even though he's the guy who observed different people and their toils and plight across ages and probably knows way more about origins of theirs.

Everybody gets a smacking from him, but only Inquisitor who earns his trust learns that Solas, you know, probably... maybe... WANTS to give people more credit than he does, if only he wasn't confined by his mission, or what he knows that we don't yet know or by his broken trust. Even with Inquistor he dislikes or just at the start of game, we get to occasionally see the glimpses of that across his comments and banters and we see the shiniest example of it in Trespasser, when he tells Inquisitor that he wants to be proven wrong - he wants to have his faith in people restored.

In that regard he's no different than Leliana (who is basically Solas's mirror in DAI). A bleeding heart of Dragon Age who cares even about the smallest person, yet had her faith damaged and can admit to Inquisitor that she doesn't really think of Thedosians very highly, even though we still know she cares a great deal and can have her faith restored.

There's a lot of talk about 'standard', but I'm not really sure what his "standard" is supposed to be? I mean, his 'standard' to pretty much immediately warm up to any person is being kind, curious and open-minded. That is exactly what draws him to Lavellan, to any friendly Inquisitor or to people like Cassandra, even though he's not a fan of humans or the Chantry in the slightest. What annoys him in Dalish (or anyone, really) is predominantly the attitude. It's pretty well-established.

You were trying to make a point that Solas's view of the Dalish comes across as exceedingly narrow-minded and that he only recognized their worth after Inquisitor made an effort to reach out to him. I pointed out that it is not really true. If he's closed off to the Dalish, it's not because he sat in the Fade and pouted, but because despite repeated attempts at contacting or cooperating with them must've predominantly resulted with rejection.

Okay... you claim that you haven't said anything for or against them as people, yet at the same time you're claiming that Solas's views are narrow-minded "just because Dalish aren't nice". There's no way to contextualize this aside from exploring what the Dalish are or what his opinion actually is. Those are issues that can't be discussed separately and I'm confused at attempts to do so.

Not only people are surprised that Solas doesn't automatically elevates the Dalish (or the elves... heck, in-universe people are surprised he doesn't do that), they're not happy that DA writers or story as a whole don't always elevate the Dalish to a special status... It is a Pandora's box of a topic though and I don't think I want to unlock it. The Dalish/elves mean many things to many people, more than Southern mages at any rate.

realized this morning over my morning coffee, why (in part why anyway) Solas' plans/intentions don't sit well with me. Aside from the obvious "implied possible destruction and chaos on a large scale".

it's the same reason why Synthesis in ME3 doesn't sit right with me, even though you don't lose EDI or the geth, the rebuilding is easier, they gain all this knowledge of what came before, maybe even immortality, and there's kumbaya galactic peace in a golden age as organics and synthetics all hold hands thanks to their new understanding of each other (pass the pipe). in choosing green Shepard disregards the bodily autonomy and right to self-determination of every being, organic and synthetic alike, in the entire galaxy, and irreversibly alters not just their bodies but their very natures and the state of their existence. they have no say in the matter and are fundamentally altered forever without their consent. my Shepard didn't feel like she had the right to make such a huge decision for everyone.

it's not the same situation with Solas and the elves, as evidently the elves used to be different and he's hoping to restore them not change them for no reason, and also the change in their existence was his fault in the first place and he's seeking to correct his mis-step. but the sense of discomfort arises from the same place I think. here I'm assuming that "restore the world of the elves" etc involves restoring their immortality and magical power, and "themselves" - that is, whatever 'connection' they had to the world, the Fade, to spirits etc before the construction of the Veil, and whatever's missing from their selfs that leaves Solas with the feeling that they are (or were, pre development) akin to Tranquil or otherwise sundered from themselves in the current time (see: 'Sera, you are the furthest from what you should be'-line). I'm also assuming that there's no way of 'directing' the metaphorical blast as it were - that if he succeeds in removing the Veil, all elves will be affected by the change it brings and that there's no way of only changing some elves and not others. oh, and I'm assuming that the change is permanent.

I don't doubt that many elves would be psyched to gain immortality and magical power, and to be able to be out from under the humans' boot. but I'm not sure that I'm cool with him making this irreversible decision for all elves in Thedas about fundamental and integral aspects of their existence without their consent, or with him feeling on whatever level that he has the right to do so. it disregards their bodily autonomy and right to self-determination. they are all individuals and should be allowed agency. in a way he's imposing his view of how elves should be on them. it's true they were a certain way before and now lack in some areas that they used to have, but modern elves are not inherently flawed as they are. they're also all different people and not a monolith. I wonder about how elves like Sera and Fenris for example would react to the change.

Yeah, all those times I wish Lavellan could say what I wanted her to say instead of her script options This is why Solas doesn't want to have a real conversation with her, though. We only got what we did in Trespasser because he had to see her to save her life, but I wonder if we'd gotten that much if he didn't have to make an appearance.

What gets me about Solas is he knows challenge is his pride, yet he's still caught up on thinking he knows best. Take a breath, Solas, and listen to other people!

Hmmmm.... why do you assume WE (because protagonist is our proxy) know better than Solas? Is it pride? 

I'd like to point out that so far Solas is the one who sees the fuller picture, being the one who knows how world and people were before and are now. We have no such perspective (yet). And the one other person we know of who's seen the past also doesn't seem to eager to preserve the status quo, even if Mythal's plans ultimately don't align with Solas in 100%.

I sometimes wonder whether DA4 will be the deconstruction of protagonist's self-assuredness in their own actions or moral code, given what we may yet find out...

I mean... I certainly chuckled at people eager to destroy Solas only because he undercut our proxy's control over everything. Had even more laugh at those complaining how "Teagan is an asshole!", give that his concerns were perfectly legit and understandable - but of course he's 'wrong' because he ain't nice to our proxy. DA4 may be very interesting in that regard.

that's something I hadn't considered before. that would have been an interesting discussion to have been able to have to be sure.

Didn't Felassan imply to Imshael that bigger things are coming and there was supposed understanding between them about what Felassan was referring to? Not sure, I haven't had a chance to get TME yet.

Anyway - hard to say whether Imshael knew/recognized Solas. All I know that Solas has a comment if we allow Imshael to present his offer (IRC: "It never hurts to listen. Trust is another thing entirely"... OF COURSE Solas would mention his trust issues, hah), but it's hard to spin it as anything other than a general comment we'd hear from Solas even if he was just a regular Fade nerd.

Either way, I don't think he'd want Imshael to recognize him and I have little doubt Solas knows how to mask his identity in spirit world as well, at least to a degree.
The Nightmare seemed to know something about him, we don't really know how much - but it was a spirit so big and powerful Solas avoided its territory altogether (in fact he has sort of a moment when he slipped a little and asked Inky like it was something that's supposed to be obvious: "Why would I have ever voluntarily come to this part of the Fade?"). We know from banter with Iron Bull that Solas avoided attention of demons, we know spirit from Vir Dirthara didn't recognize him and only mentioned a masked person running through the library and we know that the Command spirit from Crestwood didn't make any comment about Solas' identity.

... In fact, I always laugh at that encounter. Solas is all like "A lost spirit. This should be-", the spirit tells him to shut up and after they exchange pleasantries and spirit tells Inky that it's Command, Solas mumbles with indignation "... Or Pomposity".

I imagine he must've felt a bit of a sting when Inquisitor stole the spotlight. Like "hey, I'm the Fade expert and local Spirit Whisperer here! What in the world is happening???"

Though abolishing the Veil is likely to be a good thing for spirits and demons who have been cut off from the physical world for millennia, so I wonder how Imshael was supposed to take it as a threat? Maybe just the potential for release of the imprisoned Evanuris is cause for concern among spirits & demons as well as mortals.

It could be more of a "Fen'harel is coming back and he'll probably be none too happy when I tell him you kept me from doing this thing." But I never read Masked Empire so I dunno the context.

Also what up I'm back because I miss the boy.

expressing it here to avoid offtopic clutter in the Twitter thread:

I hate tea. how unintentionally apt

Oh, Imshael definitely wants chaos.  He says so himself. 

As for wanting to be banished, it's possible, but Imshael seemed disappointed when you '"kill" him.  He moans something like "Aww, I was just getting started!", or something similar.