Tevinter Nights - Spoiler Thread

It is nice that the whole 'Inky is missing a limb, so they can't be the protag!' nonsense can be put to rest.

Well, if it is a live service game they could introduce and deal with some of these as part of expansions over a couple years. That or some will be set up but not really delved into until DA5. Or the game will just be a lot bigger than DAI what with being on a new console generation and having all this time to work on it. Or maybe even the MP will have its own little story modes to deal with some of these in more detail. Overall, I think they can handle all the factions without us being forced into having to play predefined characters like that. 

Honestly this worries me a bit. There were already a lot of questions that needed answers before Tevinter Nights, and now it seems like DA4 could be too big for it's own good!
I'm not exactly sure how they'll be able to take all these great elements and make it into a dynamic story. 

The downsides of having such a vivid, interesting world and story, I suppose! 
I'm sure some of the things will be explored in greater detail in DLCs.

DLCs are a possibility, as well all the smaller chunks of story they can introduce via live service - although I wouldn't discount potential tie-in books and comic books and maybe even some small games (like The Last Court) that will at least advance some things to a point where they can be concluded in DA4 (though some of this stuff may be material for story beyond).

Thats a good point, I only just finished the book and will need to digest it more I think. I was mostly just struck with the horrifying image of an entire group of templars having seizures in their sleep and blood pouring out their ears and I guess it seemed the most plausible thing he would directly do. And if that's possible how could anyone possibly oppose him? But you're right, we don't know how much of that was true and killing dwarves in their sleep seems unlikely. He's still scary powerful though. Anyway, good points all round, I feel a little better now 

Yea, I've already reread that story several times to get the details - and the Mortalitaasi mentions that the Templars present in Assassin's story are a complete fabrication (which the Carta dwarf basically admits to) meant to cover the fact that he and his men had hoodwinked the elf who hired him and sold the Idol to the Vints after they offered him a better price, only to kill the (imprisoned, they still want the potion recipe) agent in order to not finger him as the one to blame... which would make Solas very eager to find out and punish him, I imagine.

With that said, I don't think Solas will be pulling as many punches as some hope he will. This will not be a *polite* war and I imagine Solas will do or cause or agree to things many people may find irredeemable - even if our own faction or PC may be forced or enticed to do ugly things themselves, or even if only to keep him ambiguous until the Grand Finale that features a resolution for his character.

"Cap off a war filled with atrocities he committed"? ...Where did you get that from?

Are you talking about his anti-slavery rebellion? Hmm, I didn't think that being anti-slavery and trying to overthrow self-declared god-kings who are totally OK with slavery is an 'atrocity' in many people's book, even considering that it was an uphill battle that required many sacrifices, including moral ones.

Also, he didn't do this thing on a whim to 'cap off war' - that was motivated by Evanuris killing one of their own and preparing to do something that is implied to do away with ENTIRETY of the world and not just one or two civilizations. "Destroying the world to save at least a portion of it" isn't an uncommon trope in fiction and one that is oftentimes attached to complicated antiheroes or even straightforward heroes of the story (including Bioware ones), so I fail to see why is Solas consistently denied that kind of complex motivation, when there's a ton in the story supporting it.

Less on the 'should we'/'redeem vs stop' and more on the 'how would we attempt to' in a practical sense front: some ppl in a general sense are leaning into the "he's very powerful we won't be able to stop him lol" and like. Yes he is very powerful. And maybe not at the very end, if the plot demands/railroads he auto-succeeds (e.g. Anders at end of DA2), which btw 'You did everything you could and it still wasn't enough' has value as a different kind of narrative (this is basically Hawke's arc distilled), and also lots of interesting potential for sweeping change to the world and a radically different setting for a DA5 (post-Veil world, after the dust settles). There are some parts of the lore that hint he will always succeed. But even if you think he's in the right and chose redeem, even in the eventuality that he's not the real big bad and something worse is looming, even if he auto-succeeds at the end, thinking critically, it's fairly likely that the big chunk of the game will be spent trying to stop him from succeeding (whether that's convince to stop or actually stop). Unless they put it at the start like the Conclave I suppose. But anyway there is likely inevitably gonna be some creative writing around or limit put on his, how you say, power creep? If he freezes PC on first meeting, how will there be a game or a plot? If he doesn't freeze them at any subsequent meeting, how silly and cartoonishly "let me just monologue to you before destroying the world" Villian-esque "Oops oh shit I monologued too long and didn't follow through and now your friends have rescued you and beat me damn if only I hadn't been so stupid and kept talking for so long"-style would that be? Will we just be supposed to accept that he has the ability to kill us in our sleep all along in the coming game but not once does he do so? Or that the PC doesn't sleep a wink for their whole year-long (or whatever) fight against him? That would be nonsensical. It has to be believable. There's going to be something. A MacGuffin, special power or status, some research, whatever. At the end of the day on a meta level, much as it sounds like stating the obvious, there is going to be a combat-based game of a certain length that includes boss fights and a player vs antagonist arc. The PC won't be sitting on their hands in regards to the Fen'Harel issue for the whole game. This is without even getting into some of the actual in-universe suggestions/possibilities that they might have us employ.*


* An example of this. Adralla of Vyrantium, the person who made the Litany of Adralla, she also discovered a defense against dream-walkers. Sounds useful to me. Go get her research notes.

From his own mouth in Trespasser, like for example when you ask him if he'd murder countless people he says something like "I did not defeat a bunch of gods without getting my hands bloody." Yes I agree his intentions were noble, but it was very clear that he used whatever methods he could to achieve that result including murder countless innocent people. 
He can have complex motivations, but that doesn't make his actions complex. Mass murder is still mass murder, and there is no excuse good enough to justify it.

No, I don't. If Bioware goes the way of many other series where they see the philosophy of "to rise above monsters you have to abandon your humanity", then I'm done with them. It is an idiotic and disgusting mindset that has infested far too many stories recently. 
By all means, have them as optional choices but that's all they should ever be: optional and choices. 

No, he actually he responds with 'wouldn't you, to save your own'? and that other one is a response to 'at least some stories about the Dread Wolf are true'.

Keep in mind though that it was a chain of responses to a THEORETICAL scenario he was asked about ('What would have happened if Corypheus would had died and you recovered the orb?') that simply didn't happen due to events in Inquisition. In fact, we are sort of now trying to see if Solas has the guts to follow through with the plan B, while we have, in that very dialogue chain, ability to tell him that Solas wouldn't be able to do it in the end (and he thanks us for seeing that in him).

So no, it isn't clear that he has used "whatever means" to justify his ends, and considering that he appears to be shattered by things he did in the past, remorseful even just about not being fully truthful and using Inquisitor for his ends, and agonizing about limited choices he has does suggest that in fact both his motivations AND his actions are complex. 

And no - not any situation in which a lot of people perish due to actions of others is a "mass murder" that can be pinned on those who are trying to prevent that, or save at least a portion of people. These aren't "mass murderers", but usually "tragic heroes". Like Prometheus, the favorite of Western literature, who's a pretty obvious template used for Solas, as pointed out multiple times before.

If the Evanuris really did plan something that - unwittingly or no - was likely to destroy the ENTIRE world then *they're* the cause of mass murder - and striking beforehand to save at least something can't really be characterized as an unjustifiable action. That's true even if there's ambiguity whether drastic actions were necessary. One can't sit that one out (I certainly wouldn't think that's a justifiable option - to preserve me thinking of myself as a morally pristine person by avoiding action when it's necessary) and there isn't always a viable 'path C' out of a problem.

And Solas appears to have been repeatedly put in an unenviable 'Trolley dillema' types of situations - the thing you vehemently protest about to be put in, but which stories still allow to explore to create nuanced takes on things. 

So, given that you yourself don't want to be put even in a vaguely similar situation - even though you must know it can occur, including IRL, as awful as it is - I'm a bit baffled why you seem to be so determined to not see that the writers chose Solas as this unfortunate character to torture with awful moral quandaries and break him, psychologically, while saving our PCs from something this depressing.
All that, while still the character yearns for being better and clearly giving us an opening to prove that there may be a better option, at least now. I will take this kind of character over more morally unambiguous one any day of the week.

Aside from what I've mentioned above... it all depends on individual player's outlook, doesn't it? Bioware may indeed not go, in minds of many, all the way into 'abandoning humanity' (their games are usually more nuanced and optimistic than that), but you may think they do. After all, you find Solas truly irredeemable - I, and many others, do find him still redeemable and sympathize with his struggles, even if we may conclude that killing him is a better option in the end.

So who is to say how acceptable people will find the story or moral quandaries there? Are choices like Harrowmont/Bhelen or Celene/Gaspard/Briala where we 'abandon humanity', because all choices admittedly have some big flaws, even if some of them are more optimal options than others? Bhelen kills or manipulates his own family members, basically openly assassinates and lies and rules with heavy, authoritarian hand - yet he still appears to be a better king than Harrowmont, who himself seems to be a decent character whose major flaw appears to be adherence to outdated and unfair sets of traditions and an awful social structure, for example.

I have to wonder whether the dwarves Solas has probably (we don't have full certainty) killed became vulnerable because they were dealing with red lyrium and the Red Lyrium Idol?

The Dwarf Assassin who is the main culprit in this story appears to have been least affected by the Idol and - consequentially - not affected by the dream assassination. I mean... I assume that he's slept sometime *after* the whole debacle, which itself seems to have happened some time before Trespasser (as letter from Varric suggests Meredith has been eventually removed from the Gallows sometime prior to Exalted Council).

We already know that ex-Templars weren't there, that's just the dwarf trying to whitewash his actions - although the lyrium addiction may have had provided another venue for Solas to act in case they were there.

Anyway, in a world with a magic system that we haven't yet fully explored, there are options to create scenarios where a character is able to believably avoid Solas's Dreamer power - the Anchor comes to mind first. Even if we assume that most of it is gone, either the training with it, or residual forces that remain, may allow Inquisitor to have a shielding effect on people working with them and perhaps even extend that shield on others (like they were able to extend the effect of the Anchor in Trespasser on their followers). We know that blood magic has something of an insulating effect from the Fade. Heck, we have an inkling that TEA may work like this too, lol.

I mean... of course, it could always be the fact that Solas does indeed try to not be THAT awful. He didn't kill Charter, even though he's dealt with the others (dunno why he's so wary of Executors, but he has reasons to enact punishment on the Carta Assasin and The Mortalitaasi). Even if he hates Inquisitor he stops the Qunari and lets Inky live in Trespasser, because he appears to want to avoid unnecessary bloodshed where he can. The biggest strength Inquisition has that others don't is that his time with us has left Solas emotionally compromised and vulnerable to our influence, which is a powerful thing even in a world where emotion and will can't be literal forces of nature, like they can in Thedas.

I'm not looking forward to Solas succeeding despite all the things we might do in DA4 to stop him. If the veil is to come down, it needs to come down early in the game so that the protagonist and their crew's efforts can be put into something more meaningful, whatever that might be.

What made Dragon Age Inquisition replayable for me was partly due to it ending in a relatively hopeful note in the vanilla game, and even Trespasser gives us years of peace to look forward to. I don't know how much I'd be interested in replaying a game which ends in '' everything is a disaster, shit is so wack, this is not a life worth living, people are dying en masse, abominations and demons everywhere, your loved ones all die hahahah '' because that's just not compelling to me. I need something to fight for, and be motivated to do so, I need my efforts to bear fruit.

Also, Solas' story needs to be wrapped up in DA4. I'm not here for more Solas after DA4. Absoluuuuuuuutely not!