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

Yeah, I know you said that. I just want the main point of my question to be addressed. Briala, Inquisition disbanded.

Anansi got much swag than Solas!

Seriously, I personally believed that Solas is based on Anansi, a trickster god (except that he was described as a spider, instead of a wolf) of West African folklore, and also the teller of stories which Solas tells stories to the protagonist of Elven culture.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi

Reading that I can't help but think that Solas and Sera have more in common than either of them would care to acknowledge. 

The thing is if you recruit Michel de Chevin then you can get most of this information from him. He would also be able to fill in the fact that Briala was using the eluvian network so that is how she appeared to be able to be in two places at once. The only information he was lacking was the master password and since this wasn't absolutely necessary to access the network, as proven by both Morrigan and the Qun, and in any case Solas stepped in and took back control, she really hasn't got much of a bargaining chip.

I suspect that we shall find that any gains made by Briala with the Inquisitor's help will be reversed down the line. They hinted in the epilogue that whatever situation we had set up, the person in control of Orlais only did so on sufferance because of the backing of the Inquisition. With that cut down to size or disbanded altogether, things would pretty much revert to the status quo before we intervened.

The same is true of our choice of Divine. Leliana appears to make fundamental changes to the system but they may only last as long as she does and so far as the situation with mages is concerned every epilogue in Trespasser has Grand Enchanter/Divine Vivienne in the driving seat and the College of Enchanters in fear of her power, which makes sense considering she has the backing of the nobility in Orlais at least and possibly elsewhere.

I'm not very confident, honestly. The only interesting thing about city elves and casteless dwarves is the fact that they're oppressed. It's their shtick. So I find it hard to imagine the writers daring to take that away.

The situation I am talking about is the one at the end of Trespasser. If Vivienne is Divine then she grudgingly allows the College of Enchanters to exist because it is made up out of those mages who were formerly with the Inquisition out of respect for that organisation but that suggests that any new young mages are going to be encouraged to join the Circle under her leadership.

If Cassandra is Divine the College of allied mages immediately find themselves at odds with Grand Enchanter Vivienne of the reformed Circle system and their leaders are only spared by her as a personal favour to the Divine. By contrast the Bright Hand are originally part of the Circle but eventually break-away and form their own independent College. There is also a separate College if you sided with the Templars but formed from veterans of the Inquisition. In the latter case their numbers are hardly going to be large considering most of the rebels died in the fighting at Haven.

Even with Leliana as Divine Vivienne is the one who is controlling the situation. Leliana dissolved the old Circle system, so Vivienne sets up a new one, which at least answers the question of how things are going to be organised for the training of mages in the future. There is a rival College of Enchanters but once again this seems to be predominantly made up of mages who were with the Inquisition..

So whilst there are always the two factions still in existence, even if you sided with the Templars in the main game, Vivienne is the one with the political connections and I would imagine the financial backing as well. The only liberal minded monarch when it came to the mages cause, that of Ferelden, was rewarded by being stabbed in the back when the going got tough, so is unlikely to be sympathetic to the College in the future, whilst other rulers would see what happened with Ferelden and likely prefer to stick with what they know, the Circle under Chantry loyalists, rather than risk supporting the College. Thus, over time the Circle system is likely to be the one that endures.

City elves are still elves with all of the possibilities that entails.  You know, being possibly descended from spirits, having a greater connection to the Fade, etc. Casteless dwarves are still dwarves with all of the possibilities that entails.  Children of the Titans and all that.

Unless you want to make the argument that city elves are not "real"elves and casteless dwarves aren't "real' dwarves.

Only sort of? It's said they have more magic in their blood than the other races do. That's one of the reasons why blood mages like sacrificing elves. They get a bit more bang for their buck.   And Cole possibly corroborates this with his comment that a Lavellan has blood that isn't blood. But elf rogues and warriors don't have any magical abilities that rogues and warriors of other races don't get.

The sentences I bolded aren't really indicative that elves, in particular, have magical talents above and beyond those of other races. There are plenty of human mages who are not especially powerful who also are made Tranquil rather than being put through the Harrowing. That's one of the things you learn in the mage origin in DAO.

Yes, elves are affected positively by the Crossroads. That could be for any number of reasons, as simple as them having more magic in their blood or as complicated as a racial affinity for the Fade that has not been entirely lost with time. It doesn't suggest to me that elves do magic. (Unless they're mages.)

Solas calling elves to him is pretty ambiguous, and I don't think it's a clear indication that "all elves have magical abilities." Some fans think those are all ancient elves who have survived, in which case they're "his People." That's possible, but I think it's unlikely. Interestingly, the epilogue slide that goes with that narrative shows 12 elves, 4 of which are clearly carrying staves. I think it's possible he is calling modern mage elves to him, as they are as close as he can get to "his People" in the modern day and age. Two of the remaining 8 elves may be carrying staves that we can't see due to the angle they're drawn at/our perspective. The other 6 clearly aren't carrying staves, but they may be mages who don't have staves, or may be non-mage friends/family that the summoned elven mages are bringing along. They may equally be non-mage elves who have themselves been summoned by Solas. We just don't know enough to draw any conclusions yet.

I have said here before that there is a grim possibility that Solas may be calling the elves to him to help him acquire the vast quantity of magical energy he likely needs to take down the Veil - as blood magic sacrifices. He doesn't have to tell them that's why he's summoning them. He may not be telling them the whole truth in whatever form his summons takes. (My bet is he's making contacts with  elves in their dreams.) I know he hasn't used blood magic in the past, because it would have kept him from entering the Fade. But he says he's on the Dinan'shiral, so he may be resigned to cutting himself off from the Fade in order to accomplish his goals. If this is what's going on, then he may just be summoning elves for the same reason blood mages like to use them: because they have the extra dollop of magic in their blood.
 
At any rate, the text that goes with that slide is "After the events at the Winter Palace, elves left the Inquisition under mysterious circumstances, as did elven servants across Thedas. None could say where they went, but those who believed the Inquisitor's story about Fen'Harel wondered just how large the Dread Wolf's forces were... and what the ancient elven rebel had planned." There's nothing that suggests he is summoning "most elves from the South." The truth is we don't yet really know the numbers of elves who are answering the summons.

Most city elves don't.

City elves are elves and I am talking about elves in general.