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

I give it maybe 10% chance for a happy ending.  

Although, I would be forever grateful to Patrick Weekes if he let my Lavellan change Solas' mind, or join him. I would definitely send Patrick some Legos or something he likes. Yes, I definitely would.

:::please tell me that he is easy to bribe!:::

You know what, you guys are brave 😆

Since all romance/friendship path has their sad-happy version, I hope at the very least he'll have 1 that isn't overtly heartbreaking.

I think that's part of the crude style of the mosaics. They're not exactly artistic masterpieces. The tesserae are quite large, for one thing - so it's hard to capture fine detail as our own Roman and Byzantine mosaic masters were able to with their tiny tesserae.

Simplified style or no, there's enough wiggle room to make hair look more like hair. Fen-Harel certainly doesn't look like a bald dog, lol. Instead - again - no hairline and clear distinction between head and surrounding lines.

Sure. Just not in the last 24 hours. Lol

Hmmmmm yes. This trailer pleases me. Good, good... *rubs hands together all evil-like*

Looking at the theories going around, how do we feel about Solas getting corrupted with Blight? Or otherwise messing with the power. I feel like it makes a lot of things make sense - especially his "I would not have you see what I become" line - but I guess I worry about all the ways it could go wrong. A very easy (and kinda lame, imo) road to take would be to have Solas use the blight, go crazy, and then become a Cory 2.0 madman that can be guiltlessly put down. I guess I feel like it would be a disservice to the character, and I'd hate for it to be that simple. Cory was a huge disappointment for me for how... how expected his takedown was. Oh, he's a power-hungry lunatic! Oh, he's lying to his followers and they can all turn on him! Oh man what a dick! Hoo boy, Mr or Mrs or Ms Player, you don't need to feel bad about taking this guy down!

But it could be really cool, too. Solas slowly descending into corruption, knowing what he's becoming but feeling compelled to do it. Trying to stave off the song in his head just long enough to put his plan through. His final act asking the protagonist to kill him, because he knows what he is and knows there's no future for a blighted creature... Throw that fuel on my cozy little angst fire.

I just hope they give it some nuance. I don't want it to be easy, or simple. I want the decisions around Solas to be tough. Do his ends justify his means? Are his ends better for the world? All I want is that it's not a case of clear-cut right or wrong. I doubt that anything will happen to wholly absolve Solas - and I'm cool with that. I want it, even. I love how his character's struggling to do good at great cost. I feel like it'd be lame if he came out as objectively heroic or villainous. But I just... worry. It's easier to push him to the latter than the former.

God the next three years cannot come soon enough.

Honestly I really don't like that idea at all.  I know Solas can be arrogant but is he really *that* stupid?  Yes he needs power to do whatever he feels he needs to do but if he's trying to recreate the world as it was you'd think he'd want less Blight and given that the Blight corrupts everything it touches then any world created with that power would be corrupted.  I don't know, I just feel like using the Blight would, as you said basically turn him into Cory 2.0 and also that it's the easiest and dumbest route he could take.  And I think that no matter how much of a struggle they portray Solas going through it will be far too easy for a player to ignore all of that and simply think, "Oh well the Blight corrupted him and he's nuts - gotta kill him!"

I honestly can't see Solas relying on red lyrium/the Blight to accomplish what he plans to accomplish. That stuff has him shook in DAI. (I've attached the conversation you can have with him after Here Lies The Abyss under the spoiler, if you wish to refresh your memories.)


I have always thought that the thing he doesn't want Lavellan to see him become is the Dread Wolf, who I think is in fact a very powerful spirit/demon that happens also to be Solas' soul, for all intents and purposes. (I think all the elves have spirits, including our Lavellans since Solas does refer to it several times - see the spoiler if you'd like to refresh your memories.)


But as others have suggested, I think that by becoming the Dread Wolf, Solas can accomplish his goals, though at great cost to himself. I doubt the Dread Wolf cares who it kills; it's a Pride Demon of sorts so everyone else is dust to be trodden down. The Dread Wolf would not feel happy when its companions take flowers to the grave of an elf for her husband, or help refugees. It can't care about those things. It probably can't care about a romanced Lavellan, either. But becoming the Dread Wolf will make it possible for a kind-hearted Solas to do the hard things. Solas doesn't want to go full demon but he knows it's the only way. And I think that is going to be a major point with his character - we already saw that he is struggling with what he "must" do in Trespasser, and the new art revealed in the teaser suggests to me that he is going to continue to struggle in The Dread Wolf Rises.

I have also long wondered whether the reason he is calling elves to him - and I don't think all those elves are ancient elves who have persisted, as some in the fandom seem to think - is because another thing he doesn't want Lavellan to see him become is a blood mage. He needs tremendous power to tear down the Veil. Elves, even modern elves, have more magic in their blood than any other race, hence why blood mages seem to really like elves as sacrifices. He talks at length about blood magic being a tool if you ask him about it. He also says that he doesn't use it because it would prevent him from going to his beloved Fade. But if it would give him the power he needs to accomplish his goals, I think he would do it. "The healer has the bloodiest hands," after all. And that might be another part of his struggle - killing all these descendants of his people to get what he needs. Especially for a befriended/romanced Solas who realizes these are quite definitely people - indeed, his beloved's people - that would be a hard choice to make.

And this is where I think it's possible the red lyrium and Blight strands of the Dragon Age tapestry might tie in. What if what Solas is planning to do - tear down the Veil - will make it possible to end the Blight? 

What is worse? The Blight or a world with no Veil?

How do you make that choice?