Lucanis Dellamorte - Official Companion Thread [Spoilers]

If this is the case then it would suggest that they have changed direction slightly from how Solas' plans were presented in Trespasser. There it did just seem a case of wanting to reverse what he had done regardless of the cost. He fully anticipated that the majority of citizens were going to die as a result of his actions and he warned the Inquisitor specifically so they could enjoy what time they had left. Players reacted quite badly to that. Far more people turned against Solas as a result rather than felt sympathy for him. So, by Tevinter Nights PW had started softening the outcome a little in his words to Charter, even though it still implied only elves would survive. Then in the game play trailer he told Varric he had taken steps to mitigate the damage. Why couldn't he have told the Inquisitor he was going to do that back in Trespasser? Why didn't he tell Varric that he wasn't taking down the Veil at that moment in time but changing the prison of the gods? I still don't understand why he left the eluvian network open and had nobody guarding his ritual site. It is almost as though he wanted Varric and company to find him, or someone else did, Mythal perhaps? She wanted a reckoning that "would shake the very heavens", but that was unlikely if they were just locked away somewhere different.

Anyway, my point is that whilst Solas was perfectly prepared to criticise our companions in DAI, it seemed rather hypocritical at the time to suggest, for example, that Dorian should devote himself to ending slavery, if in a few years everyone was going to die anyway. For the same reason, why would Solas involve himself too deeply in Tevinter politics. As he says to an Inquisitor who accuses him of not doing more for the elves, what could he achieve politically that the Inquisitor could not if it were possible?

If that was Solas' motive, I repeat my assertion that he would have dealt with it himself if the danger of Veil collapse was that great because it would have messed with his plans. When he wanted to recover the idol he did this himself, acting either physically himself or via his alter ego in the Fade to stop its use in threatening the Veil. If what Forfex was doing had anything but local implications, he would not have entrusted it to Lucanis and if it did have only local implications he would not have bothered with it. If he was concerned about the red lyrium production he would have had Lucanis trace it back to its source not simply eliminate an end user. Besides, as you point out, Solas is a powerful Dreamer mage with ways of observing the world through the Fade, so he likely can detect where the main lyrium production is taking place and put an end to it. In the Missing Solas dealt with that Venatori in Vyrantium himself.

By contrast, Dorian having Lucanis systematically pick off high ranking (from a Tevinter perspective) Ventori would make sense. He was trying to eradicate corruption in the Magisterium. He and Maevaris had managed to gather a small group of young Magisters to their Lucerni faction but he admitted they were not yet in a position to make a big impact. Then the Antaam attacked mainland Tevinter, Ventus/Qarinus, their home city, was attacked and destroyed and the Antaam swept down the eastern side of Tevinter virtually unopposed, which Trespasser said was down to the Imperium being already politically unstable. If the Venatori were the ones blocking or hampering the war effort, it would need urgent action. Thus, it would make sense that Dorian would hire an outside assassin to reduce their numbers in the Magisterium but ensure it couldn't be traced back to him. Remember the Forfex job wasn't the first one that Lucanis had been involved in. It said at the beginning of the story that the Crows (which would have been Lucanis or those working for him) had already killed eight others (which was all part of his contract for the rich, anonymous paymaster) and Lucanis did have enough of a reputation that when told it was specifically Lucanis coming for him that Forfex actually felt worried. Lucanis was systematically killing Venatori but there seemed no other reason that he had been told other than they were "racist blood mages" (I think the author should have used nationalistic or mage supremist but real world language was creeping in) and there does not seem any real evidence that it was anything other than that as the reason he was hired. Solas would not be involving himself in such a random way unless he did want to involve himself in Tevinter politics and given his goals which were about to come to fruition, why bother?