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

How can one "fight for the world to evolve as it chooses" when we don't know many things about the world or it past/potential future in the first place? For all we know our perspective may change depending on what we learn. Denying that possibility - just like denying the fact that there's no unified 'everyone' we fight on behalf of - means potentially denying the informed choice and perhaps a potential better path forward (nobody said that we're going to be presented with a binary choice)... I mean, you're basically doing what you accuse Solas of You just assume that you are already entirely right on this and what has to be done - something that certain other ancient megalomaniac with messiah complex was definitely guilty of and something the does indeed smells of forcing one's view on everyone.

So, you are right to call your logic very 'simple' - as in, simple enough to really oversimplify things, when this particular conflict already has all the hallmarks of not being a case of 'some ancient megalomaniac with messiah complex'.

I mean, we already know that not everyone was happy with a magical apocalypse when the Veil has been lifted, just like Solas must've been entirely unhappy to push away his beloved Fade from the world... But, if it did indeed prevent something worse from happening, then one can see how such choices can be justified - OR how one could be very motivated, beyond just selfish reasons, to try and do something about a choice that wasn't much of a choice to begin with (especially if they still know more than we do).

And there's no way of telling if we won't have to make similar tough choices, especially given all the suggestions of Inquisitor succeeding Solas in some way. So watch out, because your wish may be granted - Inquisitor will be back and put front and center of the story or its conclusion, only to be forced to pick between decisions you may really not like. BW does like to be trollish that way sometimes...

Anyway - this seems to be going in circles so I probably won't be participating in this particular back-and-forth much longer. The gist of the disagreement is the usual anyway, which is that I don't share your confidence in the idea that this is a relatively simple case of the good guys/everyone vs. some evil, selfish a-hole. I guess it's a good thing that this is a fictional world in which we can safely explore such scenarios and I'm definitely hoping for something more intellectually and emotionally stimulating than yet another simple black-and-white tale.

Er... hang on  The reason we're all still here - 5 years after DAI's launch - and discussing Solas and potential future of Theads is precisely because we don't know how this will end   This is literally how this story was designed to be.

So I'm not sure why suddenly there's an issue with "What if?" when a large chunk of things we're discussing are supposed to be exactly that - which is also the reason why I caution against thinking that things will have very specific course or outcomes, like some people already seem convinced they will.
He's also destroyed the world of the elves, yet at the same time both world and the elves still survived, even if not how they were before. Clearly, we can't really say what he means by an "end" - or whether it's really necessary given that he's looking forward to being proven wrong on the whole destruction part.

That may be true and all but it still stands to reason that Solas's plan will result in major loss of life. I don't think it is all that presumptuous to think that thousands, if not millions of mortals will die in whatever plan he has set up. It probably won't even be limited to mortals either but spirits as well.

Which isn't to say the world/society/whatever can't potentially benefit in the long run from Solas's plan (depending on the circumstances and what we learn of course). But the way Solas presented his current plan made it clear that there will be massive destruction and chaos.

There's a difference between a destruction of civilization and "the whole world" - in fact it appears that the civilization fell SO the world/people could survive.
This is hardly the only alternative scenario that could potentially happen, although I imagine that I myself may envision the above a lot differently than what you seem to think I do.

There's one thing that bugs me a bit though...
Why do we keep moving from actual topic at hand and discussing this as if I've ever suggested that there WON'T be any destruction or end of some sort? Can you both point me out to where I've stated anything of the sort?

Maintaining that this story-line is more complex than "us versus yet another pretty conventional baddie" does not equal saying that there won't be any end, strife, struggle or destruction in the end   Heck, I'm on record stating that even the revelation that the Veil is not the Maker's creation threatens the world as Thedosians know it due to potential upheaval spurred by collapse of the status quo - so Solas doesn't even have to do much for things to end up in a pretty bad spot, heh.

So all I'm saying is that we don't know what would the extend or nature of the end or destruction, never mind whatever it could mean in the long run. I have no reason to doubt that whatever Solas plans to do ain't benign, because Solas himself seems pretty sure that what he has to do is awful - thing is, that there are many things, aside from just straightforward death, that he finds awful.

We also don't seem to know all the reasons why he thinks that he has to continue despite deeming the choices left to him as basically eternal-damnation-worthy. But I don't think that many here think that this is just him being an ancient megalomaniac with messiah complex or that this is all just about imposing his will on others. Or that many here rule out the possibility that we may potentially uncover information that will shift our perspective on a lot of things, including our PC's role in all this.

I still think that Solas' plan is bound up with cleansing the world of the Blight. This little exchange seems very pertinent, particularly the highlighted parts.

Solas: The Grey Wardens allow elves and dwarves into their ranks?

Varric: Qunari too I imagine. They don't care about titles or blood, just stopping the Blight.

Solas: A pity they do it so badly then.

Blackwall: Would you care to repeat that?

Solas: Argue if you like, your fight against the darkspawn is noble, but what progress have you made?

Varric: Give them some credit, it's not like you can study the Blight safely. I may not like everything they've done, but without the wardens, we'd all be blighted by now.

Solas: They've bought us some time, I will grant them that.

Solas was also very derisive of the idea that killing the last of the arch-demons will end the Blights and was beside himself at the Grey Wardens' plan to attempt to do just that. So I think he feels that to save the elven race from the Blight he needs to restore the world to what it was before the Blight was released. Something about the release of magical energy is what he feels is necessary to cleanse the world or may be even the combined might of the Evanuris.

It is noticeable that both the Promissors and Drakon thought the world needed to be cleansed with fire, the former feeling that the world was too corrupt to be saved in its current state, whilst the latter claimed this was a vision given to him by the Maker. Considering I have strong suspicions that the "Maker" of this world who spoke to Andraste was likely Solas speaking from Uthenera and it is possible he may have inadvertently put similar ideas into the minds of the others, these various references do seem to be a foreshadowing of what is to come.

Does clan Lavellan's membership in Wycome's council mean that the clan lives there now? No more moving from place to place?

Yeah, it definitely indicated to me that the clan is putting down some roots in Wycome for a while. Kinda hard to remain part of the city's council without living there. They could of course use it as a base of operations and still send out some travelers or allow those that want to stay nomadic to go off and be so, I suppose.

Probably because it’s just one of many quantum states. Plus, it leaves room for some headcanon - you want them to live within the city walls or else? Sure, have at it.

Semi-annual thread check-in:

Happy Halloween!

I haven't lost my DA obsession. I just hide it deep down so I can endure this wait.

The bolded is the better read of it. When we met with the BioWare writing team in September, they were pretty clear they wouldn't be sharing news about DA4 as part of DA Day, and we assured them that that was absolutely not something we DA Day organizers expected them to do. Of course, Marketing is involved now (that's where the tweet came from) and they may decide differently, but I'm not counting on it with DA4 still three years away according to the recent EA financial report.

More than ok! folk are very welcome to post their creative works here

If they'd do the tiniest bit of research, they'd see what it's really about. I really think they're looking for clickbait.

Here's an article from Games Radar that they were able to write just by looking at the DA Day website and tweets from DA Day founders online. If Games Radar can figure it out, I'm not sure what the other game journos' excuses are. 

At any rate, we did rebrand ourselves to be Dragon Age Day this year, not Dragon 4ge Day, so it was an unfortunate slip up by EA's marketing folks in that tweet. We have been planning to overhaul the website to a Dragon Age Day URL to get rid of the 4ge reference in our URL as well, but our website volunteer said that was going to be a big job with a lot of down time for the website, so the founders decided to wait until after DA Day this year to get that done.