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

Also remember Solas was against Cole evolving and becoming more ‘human’, instead wanting him to take the path that ultimately leads Cole to no longer be Cole but just Compassion.

I suddenly had this rather surreal thought; what if our PC actually were a spirit but like Cole in Asunder we didn't know it? That would be an interesting twist. Depending on how your play the character they gradually become either stronger in their benign attribute or more demonic. Then perhaps they also become more like the mortals around them, so less one dimensional, again like Cole. It would also give Solas pause for thought.

Didn't people already speculate that Inquisitor may be a spirit due to what happened to Justinia and then us meeting a mysterious spirit that effectively impersonated her (... or did it?)? Or after lyriumghost!Leliana?

However, I don't think it's as simple as Inky being a spirit. I mean, aside from a fact that a person doesn't have to be a spirit to be swayed to a more positive or negative direction (as it happensplenty of times in DA) clearly they HAVE a spirit (per dialogue of Solas on balcony with Lavellans or in Crestwood with romanced Lavellan), just like probably mosty/all mortals - theirs just happen to be particularly interesting.

I wonder if there's a spirit of Hope on his side? Hope doesn't necessarily have a moral dimension, after all. And from a certain point of view, Solas can be accused of having a lot of hope for the future of his people. People can hope for things that are ultimately wrong, either in a "bad for them" sense or in a moral sense.

It depends if that is his prime motivator and I'm not sure that it is. He was friends with a spirit of Purpose, still is I guess, because he is very driven to achieve his goal no matter what the cost but I don't think giving hope to his People is foremost in his emotions.   What was it he said? "There is some hope for restoration".   That doesn't seem nearly confident enough to attract a Hope spirit.

Then he also has a lot of guilt and regret about his past actions which adds to his sense of purpose that he needs to fix his mistakes. Also, he doesn't seem to have much hope for himself either considering he says he walks the path of death. If you add in the fact that his actions will take away hope from all the other non-elven races, which are more numerous than the elves and particularly the surviving ancient elves, I don't think a Hope spirit is going to find him very attractive.

Of course, if it turns out this current world is doomed no matter what Solas decides to do, because of the Blight and red lyrium, then the only hope for the future might well be his plan and then that might bring a Hope spirit in on his side.

I think that is true and it points to the fact that spirits can be more than simple emotion if encouraged and allowed to develop that way.

One thing has occurred to me that has me puzzled, though. At the end of DAI after Solas has left, if you go back and talk with Spirit Cole, he starts speaking as though in a conversation with Solas, who then makes him forget what they were talking about. The problem is I thought the whole purpose of getting him the amulet is that it would prevent anyone from controlling him. So is Solas the exception to that rule?

Except he can still sense Solas in Trespasser and actually says: "Solas doesn't want to hurt people. He's not that kind of wolf." So he remembers the other name that Solas goes by and what it means if nothing else. Strangely enough if you hadn't picked up all the clues that allow the Inquisitor to state "You're Fen'Harel", to Solas on meeting him, I'd have thought this statement by Cole was a big enough clue that Solas wasn't just an agent of Fen'Harel but the Wolf himself.

Cole can also make himself forget if he wants to. He did that to himself in order to forget the real Cole so it no longer troubled him.

So I think you are probably right. What the amulet protected against was binding magic, whether by blood magic or anything else, but thought altering magic wasn't covered by the protection, particularly when used by an ancient being like Solas.

I know I've said it before on this thread but why are some of the most interesting and insightful conversations with Solas only available if you are antagonistic towards him? You particularly seem to miss so much if you choose the heart icon but I suppose that is only natural because why would Solas want to bring up subjects he'd rather avoid? However, I'm pretty certain I've never got the various dialogue chains listed below and when I saw them on You Tube they appear to be taking place at Skyhold in response an elven Inquisitor asking his opinion of the elves. So totally ignoring him at Haven would seem to result in a much deeper discussion than if you chat with him but perhaps I'm wrong about that, so any clues as to how to get the following?

Inquisitor: Ma banal las halamshir var vhen. ("You do nothing; you’ve stopped caring for the People" is the best translation I can come up with)
Solas: I have done no such thing. I simply see no way to help the elves oppressed as they are now.

(The dialogue tree diverges at this point. If you choose the special (elven) option:

Inquisitor: Ma halani! Lasa ghilan. (Any ideas what this means? Something about him going to their people?)

Solas: How many Dalish would listen? Most care little about improving their lives. They already consider themselves perfect, the sole keepers of elven lore. I might teach a few at most. But you are right, that is more than I reach by doing nothing. I suppose I am just tired of fighting.

Inquisitor: What do you mean you are tired of fighting? Fighting what?

Solas: Do you think I honed my magical skills just to impress spirits? I have joined my share of causes. But when I offered lessons learned in the Fade, I was derided by my enemies … and sometimes by my allies. Liar, fool, madman, there are endless ways to say someone isn’t worth listening to. Over time it grinds away at you.

(Another dialogue branch)

Inquisitor: That is when you should lean on your friends.
Solas: Apologies, Inquisitor, I have learned not to do that.

Or Inquisitor: If you are tired of losing, you might consider winning.
Solas: (Laughs) You’re right. I’ve given that advice to others in the past. Apparently I needed to hear it myself. Perhaps there is hope for you yet, Inquisitor.

Or Inquisitor: If you stop fighting, they win.
Solas: You do not win a war by fighting to the death in every battle. Pick the fights you can win, remember your goals and do nothing that does not further them.

(That seems the end of the special dialogue tree. So presumably the following alternatives are not elf specific.)

Inquisitor: You could still try. But ultimately you don’t care enough about them.
Solas: So you attack me, not for failing to have some magical solution but for not appearing to care? Which is it? Do you wish me to find a way to help the elves or do you wish me to cry to prove my feelings? There is no simple solution. I think you know that. Why attack me for knowing it as well?
Inquisitor: I know. You’re right…. But I wish you weren’t. (Solas slightly approves)
Solas: If it helps, so do I.

OR Inquisitor: The man who lives half his life in the Fade has no ideas? (Solas slightly approves)
Solas: Not unless we collapse the Veil and bring the Fade here so I can casually reshape reality, no.

OR Inquisitor: You’re a mage!
Solas: And you are the Inquisitor. You could order Halamshiral returned to the Dalish if you wished. But ultimately you know that would fail. That even you cannot solve this. Why attack me for knowing that as well?
Inquisitor: Because you’ve given up and I haven’t. I’ll find a way to help elves, with or without your help.
Solas: And in all sincerity, I wish you luck. For my part, I will do what I can.

Or:
Inquisitor: With your power you could do something, I’ve seen you in battle.
Solas: Who would I attack? A gate guard? What if he felt sorry for the poor knife ears under his watch? Or the Lord who rules the city? Would his death at elven apostate’s hands lead to better treatment for elves? There is no simple solution. I think you know that. Why attack me for knowing it as well?

I can't help laughing when I read the highlighted exchange. Why when this particular Inquisitor meets Solas in Trespasser and is unhappy about what Solas plans, cannot Solas respond "Well you wanted me to do something for the elves, so I am." Honestly the irony with that response to the accusation against him that he does nothing, when that is in fact his plan.

However, they are quite a few other details to unpick from alternative exchanges, in particular:

Solas: Do you think I honed my magical skills just to impress spirits? I have joined my share of causes. But when I offered lessons learned in the Fade, I was derided by my enemies … and sometimes by my allies. Liar, fool, madman, there are endless ways to say someone isn’t worth listening to. Over time it grinds away at you.

Now this isn't a surprise when you think of him as an apostate, particularly if you have heard his conversations with Blackwall. May be he did take part in the mage rebellion initially and then grew disenchanted with them. May be he even tried to help the elves in Halamshiral when they rebelled. May be he even travelled as far as Seheron and assisted the Fog Warriors. So whilst the Inquisitor doesn't demand specifics, he could easily supply them without it arousing suspicion.

However, in Trespasser he states he only woke from slumber a year before he joined the Inquisition. May be enough time to join the mage rebellion but little more. So clearly the causes he joined were in the past, so what were they? Various campaigns for the Evanuris? This seems unlikely since he mentions being derided by enemies and allies and in any case why would ancient elves question information he gained from the Fade? So is this evidence that he didn't sleep out the entire period between raising the Veil and Inquisition? Or did he partake in these causes by proxy, with him supplying information via the Fade to an agent on the ground? What do you think?

Well to be fair to Shartan he didn't fail. Unless he went against orders when he tried to save Andraste and got himself killed. However, his rebellion ultimately was successful because the unrest was so great, Hessarian was forced to give the slaves their freedom.

I've also mentioned on another thread that the reason Shartan seemed to be in many places at the same time is not that there were many Shartans (a sort of honorary title), as the human scholars suggest, but that Shartan was using the eluvian network to get around. Of course, if that was true then it is almost certain that he was under the direction of Solas. Mihris says in Masked Empire that the Dalish believe the Dreamers could see the whole world and direct their allies from the Fade. I always felt that Felassan immediately rubbishing the idea probably meant it was true, particularly as he was keeping contact with Solas through the Fade. That would account for why the strategy adopted by Shartan was so similar to that from the earlier elven fable about the trickster warrior who fought against tyrants because essentially the trickster was encouraging him to follow the same pattern and Shartan used stories of the earlier rebellion to inspire his followers.

That would also account for why in the stained glass window depicting him he seems to be shown as a mage because he probably needed to be for Solas to contact him through the Fade. We know little about Shartan before the rebellion but the Chantry scholar Petrine seemed to suggest he was a soldier in the Tevinter slave army, or possibly a personal bodyguard to a Magister, but that wouldn't preclude him being a mage as well. I suppose it depends if he was of the original wolf pack like Felassan, encouraged to go into the field, who arranged for himself to be captured and taken as a slave, or whether he was an ordinary elf of that time who had encountered Solas in the Fade and been inspired by him.

Either way, I am surprised Solas would be bitter about him, unless as I say above, he was told not to sacrifice himself out of loyalty to Andraste and he went against advice. Perhaps he even said something along the lines of:

"You do not win a war by fighting to the death in every battle. Pick the fights you can win, remember your goals and do nothing that does not further them."

Shartan ignored him and got himself and a hundred of his followers killed, probably meaning the slave rebellion took that bit longer to reach fruition, even if it was the noble thing to do, so I can see why Solas might have felt bitter about that.

I was also wondering if in fact he did get involved with advising on strategy during the war with Orlais. According to Imshael the eluvian network was operation at that time, which suggests an agent or acolyte could have been involved. Once again, perhaps it was ignoring his advice that caused the Dales to be lost. So the network was shut down again and Solas brooded bitterly once more.

Well at the outset they were probably hoping that undermining Tevinter from within would help bring it down, so no more slavery. That seemed to be the aim when Andraste and Shartan had their initial meeting: to assault Minrathous, break down the unassailable gates and "set all slaves free." Mind you, that was a tad ambitious and Maferath probably did save the south from being re-conquered by Tevinter by not gambling on taking the campaign into the heart of the Imperium. In fact, that seems a more practical, realistic and sensible approach that Solas might have adopted too, so may be Shartan was already going off script if he was still supporting Andraste after the Battle of the Valarian Fields, which he must have realised was only won because of the timely action of his elven archers, which at the time may have caught the Tevinter legions by surprise. Next time they might not be so lucky.

Remember the original site of the battle was not up in the north outside Minrathous as the historians quite clearly state Maferath was worried about taking the army any further into the heart of the Imperium. The true site of the battle must have been in southern Tevinter, in what is now Nevarra. It finally defeated the might of the Imperium in the south but their hold had been weakening there anyway. The slaves revolts were all in the lesser southern cities as well. There is no mention of the major centres of Qarinus, Vyrantium, Neromenian or Minrathous itself and only one of the slave uprisings was in a city on the coast, Marnas Pell, probably accounting for why the inland cities had experienced famine as the barbarians had cut off food supplies to the south and they were unable to bring them in by sea.

A homeland for the elves was important because they had somewhere to run to if they escaped from slavery. Then they could defend themselves from slavers in the future. At the time of the Exalted March the majority of slaves were elves, all allegedly descendants of those taken from the city in Arlathan Forest. Whilst I doubt this is entirely true, the fact is that any other surviving elven settlements would be very small or hidden away in remote places because Tevinter had conquered most of Thedas at one time and particularly favoured elven slaves because of the potency of their blood. After Hessarian was forced to free the elven slaves of his time, the slave population became divided equally between elves and humans.  According to the Dalish account, Hessarian did free all the slaves (at least from those cities that had been in revolt) but not all of them made it to the homeland and some did turn back feeling they would be better off with the security offered by their former masters.   However, those they did make it to Halamshiral were safe enough from slavers because of the Emerald Knights. 

It is clear from Solas dialogue with a more antagonistic Inquisitor that he does care about the fate of the elves but he sees no point in taking action that will not result in something worthwhile. Slave revolts were constantly put down over the years. What was different this time round was the barbarians provided an opportunity to achieve something significant. Driving the Imperium out of the south for good would give hope for the future for all slaves because there was somewhere to live without that system. Conquering Tevinter altogether would be even better but as he states "you win the battles you can". Andraste wouldn't stop short of total defeat of the Imperium but Maferath saw that just wasn't going to be possible and I'm pretty sure Solas would have done too.   They still achieved a great deal more than if Shartan had done nothing.

Other people did that long ago. I hated the fact that people were saying almost immediately that Solas was Shartan, even before we discovered that Solas was a freedom fighter in ancient times. I want Shartan to be a hero in his own right, particularly as the Canticle of Shartan shows he was not some fawning disciple hanging on Andraste's every word but someone that even she acknowledged as her equal in the role they were playing in freeing their respective people. At least if Shartan was merely guided by Solas from the Fade that makes him an individual in his own right. If he also defied him in trying to save Andraste that makes him even more of a genuine hero.

Still, there seem to be too many clues that Solas was involved in events through the ages or things he says do not make sense. In fact it always seemed odd that if an ancient dreamer like him could speak to others from the Fade and he clearly was able to see what was going on in the world from Par Vollen down to the Sundered Sea, why wouldn't he occasionally get involved?

I've outlined a theory about his connection with the Dales on another thread, which came about through reading those conversations on You Tube that I never get because my Inquisitors are just too nice to him, but also re-reading some of his comments in different locations. There is a very curious one he makes when you get to Elgar'nan's Basion and the Knight's Tomb in the Emerald Dales.

"My people built a life for themselves here.....it must have been something to see."

So you think he is just being nostalgic for the ancient empire but that pause suggests he suddenly realised he might have said too much. Even the phrase "built a life for themselves here" doesn't actually fit with his other recollections of the ancient empire. After all the empire was everywhere, so why are "his people" specifically linked to that location? Then look at all the wolf statures littered around the Dales but the Emerald Graves in particular and that giant wolf statue overlooking the Exalted Plains. At the very least that suggests this area was dedicated to Fen'Harel in ancient times but why weren't the statues destroyed by the other Evanuris during the rebellion? The explanation about them representing wolf guardians in the time of the Dales doesn't make sense and for that matter why did the Emerald Knights have wolf guardians rather than dogs? Also I'm pretty sure their mages didn't have the expertise to make that statue erosion proof and why would they put it there rather than where it wouldn't have water washing over it?

Then I discovered only the other day that the elves called the Dales, Dirthavaren, a word that appears in the password to Fen'Harel's sanctuary. We worked out on the other thread that the likely meaning of this word is "Promised Sanctuary". That would make sense if it was the land promised to Shartan but what if that was always its name because it had always been a refuge for Fen'Harel's people? What if not all the elves did go into seclusion after the Veil and a small community of elves built a new life for themselves here? Resigning themselves to the "inevitable and troubling freedom" that Fen'Harel had achieved for them. Then when the Imperium spread into the south they were captured and enslaved once more but they knew what it was to be free and one of their number either then or only a generation or so later, inspired the revolt against the Imperium that led to the elven slaves being freed?

Did you never think to ask yourself what happened to the people living in the Dales when the elves moved in?   If this land had belonged to the Cirianne for generations, how could Andraste just give it away?   However, may be it had always belonged to the elves and essentially she was just promising they could have their old land back. Once that had been agreed, Shartan was happy to join forces. It may not be what happened but it is an alternative explanation and it would explain Solas' words in the Emerald Graves. At the very least they suggest that the Dales was very close to his heart because it had been a land of free elves at one time and even if he had nothing to do with Shartan's rebellion, he would have thoroughly approved of his actions.

Still, giving guidance from the Fade would explain the similarities between the story of Shartan's rebellion and that of the "trickster warrior who fought against tyrants" because he was urging Shartan to follow the same tactics as he had once employed.

As for trivialising history surely that has already happened when practically everything we have encountered so far is down to the "ancient elves did it"?   There doesn't seem a single piece of recounted history whether the human Chant or Dalish lore or even the dwarven memories that haven't been undermined by subsequent revelations about the ancient elves.   The single biggest event in the history of Thedas was the Veil because that altered reality and, guess what, Solas did do that.

The best case scenario for Andraste is it being left ambiguous whether she was blessed by the Maker or not. The moment they try giving an explanation that "Andraste was inspired/helped by ancient elves", that really ruins the whole "Is the Maker real or not?" thing they want to leave alone. Or at least they did in the past. But yeah, I'm not a fan of any of those theories you mentioned. It really hurts the world of Thedas to just have one answer for everything. 

Though I have to disagree that what history will remember is the Mark. The game makes it pretty clear that what the Inquisitor will be remembered for is not the tools they had but them as a person. For example when being made the Inquisitor, if they bring up the Mark Cassandra will say things like it was not the Mark that got the Inquisition through all their trials to this point, but instead it was you. If the Inquisitor returns as the protagonist, I could see them developing that even more since they no longer have it.