Post by midnight tea on Sept 9, 2024 18:35:52 GMT
Throughout majority of Inquisition Solas complains how spirits are often violently pulled from the Fade or affected by negative sentiments there's an overabundance of in the mortal realm. We even witness his old friend being pulled from the Fade and turned into a demon by foolish mages.
Spirits of Wisdom seem to usually travel the Fade far in wide in order to actually find out information and lost knowledge and get Wise. Besides, we can never tell whether that spirit of Wisdom was ever in Solas' sanctuary - or she may have decided that collecting knowledge is more important than her safety. A lot of stuff is going on in Thedas that would make curious spirits want to observe it.
Crossroads appears to simply be a pocket of the Fade that contains an eluvian network. And while the Crossroads we saw in DAI appears to be wholly dedicated to being a transportation hub, there's no reason to think that Crossroads can only be Crossroads.
It's sort of like the train station and the mall... you can have a train station wholly connected with the mall (that also has cinema, hotel, etc). The two don't cancel each other out - which is likely even more true in a malleable world made from magic.
So, just because part of this mini-realm that seems to belong to Solas contains Crossroads doesn't mean that's all that is to them - in fact we already know that it isn't.
Well, I'm of a mind that at the time there wasn't that much difference between a person and a spirit, and this lack of distinction may also be how elves were immortal.
Which, btw. is also probably why the spirits guarding mountain ruins in Trespasser looked a lot like Sentinels.
It is not so much that spirits might be in danger of abuse or just accidentally being pulled through like they were if they went too close to a rift but the fact there was a place he set up as a sanctuary for them. I suppose I just got a completely different idea of the purpose of the Crossroads from DAI and Masked Empire.
It's sort of like the train station and the mall... you can have a train station wholly connected with the mall (that also has cinema, hotel, etc). The two don't cancel each other out - which is likely even more true in a malleable world made from magic.
So, just because part of this mini-realm that seems to belong to Solas contains Crossroads doesn't mean that's all that is to them - in fact we already know that it isn't.
I could see it being useful to his rebellion because of the scope for fast travel from one area to another and keeping his followers safe. Perhaps more of his followers were spirits than we imagined. Hence the spirits guarding his sanctuary in Trespasser. That was in the real world wasn't it?
Which, btw. is also probably why the spirits guarding mountain ruins in Trespasser looked a lot like Sentinels.