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

I mean,  he is looking deliciously ruthless.  I'd be turned on terrified. 

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I also want to see Viv's reaction. And I'm convinced that coat tail thing was just part of his ruse. No way someone who has literally been practicing magic for millennia accidentally sets himself on fire.

I'm more... concerned by her Lavellan's makeover. Creepy glowing eyes, everything blacker than the Solas image... surely means business. Spirit-blue & grey-black vs. fiery orange and pitch-black. *poke* Where's the big screenshot for the appropriate thread?

Hehehe.

Solas once told her he didn't want her to see what he becomes. He should be more concerned with what she becomes. She can't have him going around thinking he's the only game in town.

Edit: Full size image is up!

OhDaniGirl thanks! I won a cosplay contest with the entire cosplay, which was pretty neat since it was the first cosplay I'd ever done. I recorded my work process on my Tumblr if you're interested to see how I made the Dread Wolf headdress.

My Dread Mouse is on DeviantArt. (Along with the Solas, Dread Wolf, and Flemeth plushies I've made.)

I've never heard the full version. It is so beautiful1
And now I'm so reminiscent of the solavellan feels

I think it's a good point. Whatever we think we know about something that happened with the Titans and Evanuris, we have no real confirmation of. Solas pointedly does not tell us anything about it. It is very likely that we will learn more than we thought we would when it comes out.

This is why I really have trouble understanding the people who think Solas is just flat out evil and must be destroyed ASAP. There is so much we don't know about him, about the past, about what actually happened with the Evanuris, the titans, and everything. It's also why I'm really curious about what he'll be like in DA4.

He might be planning to take the secret to his grave, since he mentioned he's walking the din'an shiral, but... I'm not sure how certain anyone can be that no one else in Thedas will ever stumble across what the Evanuris stumbled across and end up repeating history even if Solas tells no one about what happened long ago. Anyway, we can't expect him to become an eternal guardian as that would be a very lonely path for him to walk, and I'm not sure if he's even immortal anymore. He might be quickening now that he's out of uthenera. (And that's another thing I'd love to learn about ancient elves - whether they all started quickening after the Veil or if it was just the ones who were born after the Veil who quickened.)

This isn't meant to justify what he is doing but answer the question "Why?" I've constantly asked if he has a valid reason why he must take his action, why doesn't he tell us? This video gives a possible answer to that question. After all if you straight up ask him why this world must die, he responds that he has probably already said too much and if he reveals more you might figure it out. That always seemed odd to me, particularly if, as some people suggest, he wants to be stopped. So, instead of wanting to be stopped, he is just giving a warning of what is to come and wants you to understand he has no choice. It actually seems to confirm the idea in my mind that he knows the world is doomed regardless but he is saving what he can.

So, for those people who want to save Solas, proving him wrong isn't simply showing him an alternative but perhaps also showing that you can bring this about without becoming corrupted yourself. Which does seem to be confirmed by that voice clip:

"They call me the Dread Wolf, what will they call you when this is over?"

I don't think he has said anything like that explicitly. He talks in terms of "mights" and "maybes" and "what would have beens" in Trespasser. I think at that time, he wasn't quite sure yet himself what his next step would be since the orb had been destroyed. And as Gervaise mentions, he isn't doing whatever he's doing out of an evil desire to rule the world. There is clearly a lot of stuff we don't know about him. Killing him might be the stupidest thing to do if he is indeed saving this world - which he DID say explicitly in The Dread Wolf Takes You. As the video Gervaise linked to suggests, I think there is too much we don't know about the relationship of the Titans, the Evanuris, and the Blight. As of the end of DAI, the Blight is spreading out of the Deep Roads and onto the landscape in the form of red lyrium, thanks to the Venatori. (ETA: And based on some of the things we've seen in the artwork released by BioWare, it's clear that things are much, much worse by the time DA4 rolls around.) I think time is running out for Thedas wrt the Blight and that is what Solas is trying to save the world from and what he can't tell the Inquisitor about due to the things Corseque mentioned in that video. I think that if you (the players) killed him, it's very possible *you'd* be responsible for genocide as eventually, everyone would get infected by the Blight.

As for the "Fen'Harel cultists" in Half Up Front, I don't think they are working directly for Solas or that he is the one who gave them the idea of killing themselves if they fail their mission. I think they are opportunistically taking advantage of whatever Solas is doing to push their own agenda. I think the cultists are a red herring.

"I will save the elven people, even if it means this world must die."
"If they must die, I would rather they die in comfort."

"If" introduces a conditional statement in both these contexts. This is what suggests to me that he isn't sure what is going to happen. It says he is willing to go that far if he has to, I'll grant you that, but you can't condemn a person for a crime they haven't yet committed.

With regards to "I am not Corypheus. I take no joy in this. But the return of my people means the end of yours"  -  "Destroying their world" in the context of what he thinks he's already done... clearly hasn't. They're no longer immortal, their culture has changed, and they've adapted to the new world. Arguably they might have become better people for it, if any of the things we learned about the ancient elven world from reading books in the Shattered Library are true. It sounds like it was a pretty awful culture. We get more evidence of how awful it really was in The Horror at Hormak. At any rate, cultural change would have happened anyway over thousands of years, which is how long it's been. They and the world still exist. Solas was just the catalyst for change, which is a time-honoured role for many a trickster god in real-world legends.

Solas also said:

"Because every alternative was worse."
"Had I not created the Veil, the Evanuris would have destroyed the entire world."
"in their lust for power, they killed her."
"Not a good answer, no. Sometimes terrible choices are all that remain."
"I did not lead a rebellion against immortal mage-kings without getting my hands bloody."
"You were people, and you deserved better… like all the rest I have used in one hopeless battle after another."

And in TDWTY he says:
"What I am doing will save this world, and those like you--the elves who still remain--may even find it better, when it is done." Yes, Charter thinks Tessa wouldn't find it better, and says so. I know you believe Charter is referring to Tessa dying, because that's what you believe is going to happen to everyone. However, I believe that Solas is only agreeing that Tessa wouldn't like the world once he's done whatever he's doing because the power balance will have shifted drastically and humans may not find themselves the dominant culture anymore.

You say "Many villains throughout history and in stories thought what they were doing would save the world," and that is exactly what I'm getting at when I say we don't know enough about the ancient past to confidently say that stopping/killing Solas will save the world. If, as I suspect, whatever Solas is doing is meant to stop the Blight once and for all, then killing him before that plan comes to fruition could doom the world instead, and then the player becomes the villain.

I'm not saying Solas is a saint. He is clearly an "ends justify the means" kind of guy who will do what he thinks is necessary to save the world. But I really can't see him as a villain the way you do. At worst, he's an anti villain.

"You'd murder countless people?" "Wouldn't you to save your own?" (As a side note, I hate how we aren't able to actually answer this question since I have a rant on why it would be no)
I am sort of wearily curious about your rant, because I doubt you made it through Inquisition without murdering countless Venatori and/or Red Templars. So here Solas is just pointing out what he has already watched the Inquisitor do over the course of Inquisition.

I'm also somewhat curious whether you executed any of the prisoners you got to judge at Skyhold.