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

Solas, my first love in Inquisition. My favorite romance in DA along with my Pirate Waifu.

I decided to return to BSN to offer appreciation to the greats.

I see that. It makes me so sad. I need some Dragon Age in my life. I’m about to start another Inquisition playthrough as we speak.

I mean, he becomes friends with your non-elf-quisitor easily enough. Elf makes sense for him, initial physical attraction-wise, as those are the only real "people" he had known. It would probably take him a lot longer to see a human, qunari, or dwarf as something beyond a friend relationship, but he's not without the ability to be open minded if you present it to him in the correct light.

Which is how I hope the elf-quisitors who still love him and want to redeem him will have the chance to change his mind. Find the way. Present it to him in a logical, persuasive arguement. Argue until you're both blue in the face, have some angry words, maybe some angry sex, and then talk about it again in the morning. LOL!

He later talked a bit about it and said that they didn't want what they're doing with Solas distract from what they were doing with Dorian and Krem.

Also - this is not "only cis straight people can be villains now". The issue at hand is that there's no lack of cis/straight characters in the media and thanks to that they CAN be everything, because for each bad/questionable portrayal you can give multiple examples of fantastic, well-liked, well-rounded, complex cis/straight characters - but with a relative dearth of LGBT characters each portrayal is either under more scrutiny or still viewed by enough people as proof that there's something wrong with them.

Sorry, but are you suggesting that Solas is NOT a thoughtful and complex, 3-dimensional antagonist regardless what sexuality he has...? 

And since when, because they didn't want some issue to overshadow what they're doing with Solas or other characters dominate the discussion, it suddenly means that we're now following the story with a nuance of After School Special? 

I hope you realize that the logic in this argument is... kinda wonky? 

Or their LGBTness would be used as a proof that LGBT characters can only be evil, bad, a failure or on the wrong side. I think you are forgetting that there are two sides to the issue here, both in terms of how people view someone's sexuality (some often conflate it with morality) and in terms of how Solas himself is perceived.

And I think the Unfortunate Implication would be indeed unfortunate if Bioware didn't have a wealth of complex LGBT characters in their stable already. But Solas is different and Weekes is pretty clear that at the time they didn't know how his character is going to be viewed as sympathetic or simply monstrous.

Also - I gotta say that I am amused that in first paragraph you're complaining about 'are only cis straight people can be villains now!?' and in last you're waxing poetic about villains often driving the plot and being the most memorable part of the story or simply being smart/cool... Well, which one is it then? Seems like 'damn if you do, damn if you don't!' scenario for me.

As someone who studied and does art all I can say is this - it's nonsense. No, you can't control how all of the people take your art just like you can't control the weather... but you can predict when not to go outside and which places to avoid to minimize chance to be struck by lightning. You can control which things to plant and how to cultivate them in a climate you're living in and what to not waste your energy on.

It's similar to art process. Art is about evoking feelings or thoughts in people. It doesn't exist without an audience. It's a creative dialogue - and if you want to use that dialogue or actually have one, you have to know how to communicate with others, at least to an extent. This is not a zero sum game. The fact that there will be people misinterpreting or not liking what you do doesn't mean that you don't have any measure of control over how it will be perceived (by target audience or general one) or that you're sacrificing your creativity if you take into consideration opinions of others or ponder how your art could be interpreted.

It's all about intent. And intent in art is not limited to just sputtering whatever mind brings with no consideration how it's going to be received. 
If you think that art can be only true and pure when there are no limitations then, well... I present you with wise quote of Orson Welles: "the enemy of art is the absence of limitations". Limitations are often what spurs creativity to overcome them.

Also - what's with the whole "they weren't even entertaining the thought of a complex antagonist who just happens to be gay or bi"? What is this logical fallacy - since when coming to a conclusion about specific character's sexuality means that they never thought about it? In fact, all that Weekes said on the topic suggests that they thought about it quite long and hard.

From what I know, they've been considering the impact of all aspects of characterization, including their sexuality, from the very start of DA - there are interviews in which they explain why there were or weren't certain options in game and reasons for it varied, from budget limitations to audience reception. So, according to your logic, DA has been 'tethering on the verge of becoming Afternoon School Special' since your beloved DAO. When all they were doing is what every creator worth their salt would do, duh...
And how is that somewhat less true in DAI? I've already pointed out that DA creators thought about each aspect of DA characters since DAO, so this statement is simply false. 
That's a strange idea of an 'ideal' I guess, coming from an author that gave us many complex, controversial characters from different walks of life, often with bittersweet fates... I mean, if this is the 'ideal' Thedas then I want more of it, heh.

But what's with the 'arbitrary rules who can or cannot be villains'? It's THEIR fictional world. All the rules in it are arbitrary. And NOWHERE they said that they don't want bi folks to be villains or something - just that they weren't sure if one specific character's sexuality wouldn't be too tropey and distracting (if not somewhat repetitive, given that many folks like to draw similarities between Solas and Anders). Hence they haven't done it in this specific case. That's a long way away from what you are implying they are supposedly doing.

To address this point - they only move from romances for Anthem, AFAIK. Like you said, the game's not even out yet, so they have to make it clear what to expect from it and what not to.

First - let's not forget that Anthem is a somewhat different game for BW and they were pretty clear about it from the start.
Second - let's not forget that romances are very expensive to make. If they do romances, they have to take money from something else - not having romances perhaps allows them to put more money in other aspects of the game, and by that I mean the story content. We do know that there will be relationships and camaraderie in Anthem, just no romances - although they did state that the door will potentially be open for them once they start rolling out live updates for story and characters.

Also, romance scenes in 1st person? Not appealing to me, personally 

The gameplay footage I'd seen - the flying around, fighting - wasn't in first person so I hadn't realised the rest of it would be. I agree that romances in first person would be ... weird lol.

Yea, flying around in the open world happens from 3rd person perspective, but stuff in the hub - where we experience single-player campaign - is in 1st person. We did hear from them that in some cutscenes our character will be visible, thus not in 1st person, but details are murky on that and ATM it’s safest to assume that most of the story will be experienced in 1st person - which I’m personally not very enthusiastic about, but oh well. I haven’t yet decided about getting the game - so far only DA and TES chapters are a guaranteed buy from me. And who knows, maybe they’ll make FPV less awkward than it usually is for me.

Also - can you imagine the romantic moment in FPV, when a NPC squishes their lips to the screen in a kissy scene or something? I’d die laughing

What specialization should Aria be guys? Do you think aesthetically a certain specialization would work well for her?

Personality wise, I’m playing her soft spoken and well meaning. An introvert even among her clan but she loved them. Never truly was understood and a bit odd, her only real friend was the Keeper.



Edit: IF YOU CANT SEE HER STAFF, SHES A MAGE