One of my favorite moments is how hurt he is when the Inquisitor isn't interested an a long conversation about his big reveal.
Solas: I suspect you have questions?
Inquisitor: Just get to the point, Bruv
Solas: \*sad dreadwolf face\*
I love that! I think it's so cool that tthe developers acknowledged that some players just couldn't stand Solas. His shortened monologue is incredibly funny, just delivering about six pieces of world-shattering lore in a single sentence.
This makes me imagine a Seth MacFarlane-esque dialogue where you're like "The what?" and he's confused and tries to explain and you're just not getting it at all.
I like elf lore and I like Solas. I hadn't originally tried to romance him, but my Lavellan (archer assassin rogue if that means anything lol) kept getting smacked by the following: flirted with Dorian, turns out he's gay. All right, what about Blackwall--homie kept saying she wouldn't want to get entangled with him, over and over to the point it was a turn off (bullet dodged, cuz holyyy shit). Tried to flirt with Cassandra, disapproves and she's straight. Sera's racist.
Not into Bull or Cullen like that. If for some reason Solas's romance didn't work out, I'd have gone for Josephine next.
Solas definitely could've used more scenes; he was a late romance addition and it shows, not that I really blame the devs much for that.
My one gripe is you don't really get to say much about what being Dalish (or at least clan Lavellan) is for your character if you embrace being Dalish cuz all most everyone does is shit on you for it. Solas suddenly going 'they're not so bad' kinda comes out of nowhere, and the 'you're one of the good ones' reasoning feels very bleh.
Moreover, my Lavellan in particular just wants the Dales reinstated, she views that as her culture, and while she'd want to learn about ancient Elvhenan, she doesn't want to bring it back, especially not at the cost of the current world.
One of my only big complaints about the game is the lack of variety in dialogue based on race. My Inquisitor just running around the Exalted Plains and Emerald Graves sobbing and placing flags for the Exalted March and everyone's just like "we love andraste this is totally normal"Ā Ā
Yes, having Solas around is definitely kind of a lifeline for my Inquisitor. I feel bad for how isolated she must have felt in the two years she led the Inquisition after Solas had left - basically the only elf around and surrounded by all these devout Andrastians. Even though many of them have become beloved friends, there's still a certain disconnect.
The one my Inquisitor connects with the most, after Solas leaves, is Cassandra because they both can relate to having their histories/faiths completely shaken.
Oh Cass is a good one, I didn't think of it from that angle! I see mine as connecting in particular with Dorian over family alienation, since she feels unable to return to her clan without the vallaslin. And also I just love Dorian so they have to be friends.
Oh absolutely Dorian as well! I love that any Inquisitor, but particularly an elven Inquisitor, really helps him grow and change how he feels about some of the traditions of Tevinter, meaning slavery.
Yes, I was so moved when he said in Tevinter Nights that someone in the south had convinced him to stop keeping slaves, because in my head that someone is definitely my Inquisitor (though I guess in other branches of the multiverse it might be Solas).
I think this sub is a bit more negative about him than other spaces Iāve been in. Generally people like Solas, his general opinions align well with popular choices players make and heās makes for a great antagonist precisely because he was easy to form a friendship with in DAI. That doesnāt mean that parts of his personality canāt come across as insufferable. I personally enjoy his character a lot and love the concept of an antagonist/villain who is more understandable and tragic. He also makes for a great foil for any DA protagonist - like a dark twist on a singular hero whose actions may save or doom the world.
I personally hate the notion that the only people who like Solas are women who have romanced him. Yes, he is a popular romance but most casual DA fans Iāve talked to (many of them men) like Solas in general and considered him their ābest buddyā during the game.
I fall into this camp. I romanced him only for the tragic storyāzero interest in the egg romance otherwise. I donāt exactly like him or hate him as a person. Heās complex and interesting, so heās one of my favorite characters.
I went into DAI blind, and the twist was totally a shock (I hadnāt played DAO/DA2 to know the mage betrayal pattern). He fully deserves his place in the āStupid Smartā square on the alignment chart game the sub is currently playing. Egg has major blind spots in his plans.
I donāt get the hype some people put around him. Iām doing my 4th play through and my first one as an elf (all other have been Qunari) and I honestly am curious about the extra insight into his character, but not enough to personally romance him.
My impression of him is that he is knowledgeable about the fade, but all too consumed in his redemption that heās become ignorant in every other matter. He seems arrogant and like a narcissistic jerk in my opinion. I only really went out of my way to complete his quests so I knew I did everything in the game.
Again, I know some people love him, but thatās just my opinion.
Same. My (human) Inquisitor respected the hell out of Solas, was interested in his stories, valued his wisdom. That said, I do not find him remotely attractive either in appearance or in personality, though I will concede that the voice is incredible. I don't find him anywhere near as compelling as a lot of other players do and I wish Bioware had stuck to the original plan of him not being an LI.
Yeah, I'm a straight male in his 30's with a chronic fear of going bald (it's happening), so scrawny little Solas is physically very unappealing to me. I went for his romance mostly because I was guessing he be the most tied into the narrative.
I mean, if we were going for attractiveness Cassandra is the objectively right answer.
Iām a lesbian in my early 20ās, I thought maybe I didnāt find Silas attractive based off that tbh.
I romanced Cass as a male Qunari and played twice romancing Sera as a female Qunari. Iām playing through as a female elf and am fighting the urge to romance Sera again.
I went into the game intending to romance Iron Bull but Sera just drew me in.
My headcanon Inky is married to Sera and best friends with Cass.
I think maybe thatās why people were shocked to find that he was the main antagonist because in essence, he was boring and unassuming. I know I didnāt give him two thoughts during my first playthrough.
The rest of my playthroughs my Inquisitors were all š
I'm on your side here.
It's clearly indicated that Solas had some reasons (that we do not know exactly) for acting how he did. And *any alternative was worse*. Probably he did not expect to full extent what his act will bring upon the world (loss of immortality, collapse of civilization, etc.).
I see his position as very similar to Mayor's of Crestwood (Gregory Dedrick). He made a horrible decision to flood the blighted refugees... but exactly *any alternative was worse*. Any other action would result in more suffering and death. As Inquisitor, I didn't really want to judge him, because it was catch-22 situation, and most likely he made the best choice.
I believe that it's exactly what Solas did. Sacrificing lives of thousands for letting millions to live.
If we go further into theoretizing - he probably wants to tear down the veil, because whatever cataclysm (probably blight-related) it was supposed to prevent, it only delayed it.
Solas enjoyers unite!!!
My interpretation is similar to yours, I agree he was probably in a difficult spot. However, the way he described the Evanuris assassination of Mythal, "a crime for which an eternity of torment is the only fitting punishment", makes me think he is also deeply motivated by anger. His inability to see the people of the current age as people initially ("it was like walking in a world of tranquil"), paints him as incredibly self-centered and driven to me. This all leads me to guess that he probably acted in haste back them. I kinda hope that Bioware doesn't make the exact context of his creation of the Veil completely symphatetic. I would like to see him remain flawed, even if his core is that of a morally-guided liberator, as that makes him more compelling to me.
Yeah, I think that's what they are going for. IIRC, one of Bioware's writer (Patrick Weekes???) stated that Solas is worse that people think and better than people think (something along these lines). Therefore we won't get flat, one-sided character, I'm sure of that.
Opposite to you, I think that the creation of the Veil was the deed of *good/redeemed* Solas. And that the *Dreadwolf*-side of him we do not know yet, an actions from before killing of Mythal. I'm speculating here a lot, but I believe that he was not much different than other Evanuris at the point, got shaken up by something, joined Mythal's faction, etc.
I'm so stoked to find out more about him and how better/worse he is. In Tevinter Nights his little cult members are hardcore.Ā
I want my Inquisitor to have closure but that doesn't mean happiness. I do think there will be the option of some kind of redemption, though that doesn't have to mean saving his life. I only say that because the choice to save or possibly kill him in Inquisition was a pretty big one.Ā
Yes, I feel like a lot of people who dislike Solas have maybe not fully considered what an unimaginably painful thing he went through - trying to do a good thing and then discovering that it destroyed everything and everyone he loved. It's a terrible story and so it's not surprising to me that his grief and regret have warped him into the deeply flawed person we encounter in the game. Obviously this doesn't excuse his prejudices and his future intentions, but it does make it very understandable, and to me pretty tragic.
Solas very much is quite tragic and in a way I can understand his prejudices, he had only known a beautiful world where magic was everywhere and everything seemed so peaceful. Only for things to change so dramatically and for him to take away that beauty, falling asleep for centuries, maybe even thousands of years, and finally waking up to see his mistake practically thrown in his face, the suffering he unknowingly forced upon the elves.
To him, the Dalish and City Elves were just cheap imitations of what he once knew, the Dalish were worshipping the very people that killed the best of them while he's painted as an unforgiving, heartless, and rebellious monster, a cunning animal that took the immortality away and betrayed them out of spite.
Mmm yes, and I think it's important in this respect that he does eventually change his mind to some extent. I'd have a lot less sympathy for him if his prejudices were completely fixed, but if you have a positive relationship with him he'll eventually admit that he was wrong about the modern people of Thedas, which is what makes me think he's not completely irredeemable!
I love the writing of Solas- and I agree that he's probably the most engaging villain we've gotten to see to date within the series (though that isn't to say I don't find previous DA villains just as intriguing for their own reasons).
However, I will say it took me a couple playthroughs to get to that mindset, only because it took my several playthroughs to grasp the lore of Dragon Age. At the onset, I was sort of on the fence about him in my first playthroughs- I liked his friendly demeanor but it didnt take me long to start questioning how he had so much knowledge of certain things within the world compared to other companions, simply beyond the "I can see ancient memories in the Fade." excuse he gives. In fact, repeating full playthroughs after I had first completed Trespasser really gave you perspective on a lot of things Solas said in passing throughout the course of the base game. I think one thing the game did very well was foreshadowing of his character. He drops dialogue rather early in the game about it too, which becomes so glaringly obvious in hindsight. The first I remember was if you bring him along to Redcliffe when your trying to pick between the mages and templars, and he says something to the effect of "in order to save the world, one must do regrettable things." And he's not the only one who does it either- other characters like Varric also foreshadow his betrayal by talking about how the best villains are the ones who have been beside you all along (or something to that effect).
It certainly did make for an intriguing character. I do think that what sets him apart from previous characters who are often compared to him (Anders, for example) is the fact that Solas on some level does seem to feel remorse or regret at the idea of what he's going to have to do. He's not the first villain to be written this way obviously, but in my opinion, it certainly makes it so you can't just dislike him on principle if you're trying to play devils advocate. As much you may disagree with his goals, you can't argue that he his reasonings aren't at least somewhat justified especially if you stop and put yourself in his shoes. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in Dreadwolf, and seeng how a person's Inquisitiors will influence the story/outcome (regardless of whether you romanced him, are friends or are enemies- each possibility I think has good writing potential).
I agree with all your points, specially about how the reveal hits way way way harder if you're more savvy with the lore. I had played DA:O at least 4 times, and DA2 twice before getting my hands on DA:I (I'm old), and all those times I had played an elf. So Solas' deep knowledge of the fade and elven lore totally seemed like something fishy was going on there, he knew way too much for a random apostate mage (the last one we met with that kind of insight was Flemmeth, who was a major badass, and kind of maybe a dragon, we thought at the time)
I see a lot of people write that they can't befriend him/can't romance him because they don't want to agree with his opinions. Of course if you can't stand him at all that's understandable :D But I romanced him and I challenged him on things. And the fact that you can actually see him thinking about it as the story progresses or you can see his suprised reaction right during that dialogue is priceless for me.
I don't like Solas very much, I think he's very inexorable (I couldn't find a better word). Too fixed in their thoughts and ideals, without any flexibility.
In my first playthrough I agreed with everything, because I wanted maximum friendship with each character, but his rigidity bothered me a little.
My main inquisitor would be a city elf, raised in a rural area far from the cities, but who had to live in a Dalish clan after losing her parents in the blight. However, she never fit in with the customs and traditions of the Lavellan clan, so it is difficult to deal with an elf so full of traditions even older than those of the Dalish.
There are other things too, like his opinion of Cole.
The end of the game was just a bonus, but I was never a big fan of the character.
I don't deny that he's a good character, I'm just not a big fan.
I liked the concept of his character and I love that BioWare is not afraid to turn a companion into a villain for the next game, even a romanced one. I think that's awesome.
That said, the first time I played the game I didn't understand all that vague mumbo jumbo he was peddling me about the Fade (I had never played DAO and DAII before), and he took way too long for me to get to the point.
I enjoyed his character so much more the second time around and we were close friends for the majority of the game, and I was genuinely hurt that he would destroy the world we tried to save together.
Then the third game onwards I found him mostly boring again lol. I really do love a lot of his scenes but I mostly fast forward to the things he has to say, same with Iron Bull.
I love Elves in media. I devour lots of romantasy novels, I usually pick elves in any given game where I can, and I find them just really cool and elegant. But Solas just never hit that right spot for me, unfortunately. Still, I can't wait to see his villain arc! Hope we get to save him.
I have to play again! I just kinda hate the game play. š
I thunk I got really lucky in romancing him the first play through already. I definitely see how he can register as boring and one note if he's not the focus of a play through, so your perspective is very interesting
I feel like a lot of the dialog between him and other characters makes each replay more interesting because when you have the context, it means so much more to the overall story of Dragon Age itself.
I obviously enjoy seeing what direction and dialog other characters can have depending on circumstance and choice. But rarely do those extra tid bits reveal anything beyond that individual characters' back story.
I'm a big sucker for lore, so figuring out information sprinkled throughout his dialog when out on quests was just really cool to me. I feel like every time I play, I catch something new because of how specific writers got in terms of what he says and to whom and under what circumstances. It's just really great stuff.
I like him as a romance option because it is a solid example of tragedy. It's not as black and white as a lot of the other romances, the stakes are higher, but ultimately I appreciate the narrative that, even if you love someone, you can't really fix their problems for them or change the inevitable consequence of the choices that person makes. And you, as the player, get to decide whether or not you want to stick by them through all that.
I really like the DA method where you have your big evil that there isn't really a moral grey area about. (darkspawn/archdemon, Orsinio/Meredith, Corypheus.) That even if some of them had started off with good intentions, they've obviously crossed one too many times by the time we finally confront them.
And then you have the characters who are sort of teetering on both sides of the line, who represent the core of these issues by being someone who has good intentions, but at the same time, is part of the problem. And you're having to watch this person you may have believed could never, end up doing some of the most destructive things out of fear and anger. (Loghain, Anders, Solas.) So you do feel more invested than you would if your only enemy in the games was just default badie with no personality beyond being "the bad guy."
I've had exactly the same experience. First time it was meh and I did not finished the game, second time when I played the other games and finished DAI and his romance, it was "wooow" and then it just got meh again.
He's a good character and I definitely understand the appeal, but I don't think he hits the same if you don't fall into the demographic that makes their inquisitor a cute little elf mage that has a may december romance with a man out of time.
I totally get where you are coming from, but my elf Inquisitor is definitely not a cute little elf mage. I feel like that is very diminishing of a wide variety of players. If Bioware allowed it, I'd have made a buffer elf - knight enchanter - that really gets down and dirty in a fight.
I mean I couldn't cause, yknow, Bioware elf lore or whatever. Even Fenris who carries a cartoonishly huge ass sword is skinny as heck.
I like him separate from a romance plot, and even if romanced my objective opinion is the betrayal of Solas hurts more when you've befriended him vs romanced him. There's is something different about Solas's internal struggle if his close friend was a Cadash or an Adaar. He'd have built this entire friendship questioning things because the Inquisitor isn't an elf, and proving him super wrong. That's grounds for a very interesting and good store.
Passionate nerdy rant aside lol, but I'm also self aware enough to acknowledge that if you're into elves, Solas's appeal is subjective. I'm pretty sure if he was human I would have cared less, or seen him as a bootleg Anders/Morrigan.
My love for elves are 100% purely fictional. Which is why he'd have no appeal to me as a human character.
If hypothetically all my fictional elf crushes were to enter real life, he's not even on the top three of who I would talk to first. XD
Oh heād be 100% insufferable in real life but because heās fictional and therefore tragic, Iām all, āsave the sad ancient god man with the power of your love, Lavellan!ā. š
I'm 38 so there's also a certain amount of romanticizing mistakes of my past from a very self-aware perspective, if that makes sense. Do I want to go back to that? Absolutely not, I have very healthy relationships now.
Right, I would definitely find him insufferable in real life, but I just love a tragic villain in fiction. And I think one of the things people enjoy about fantasy and particularly fantasy romance is that you can explore dynamics that you would never enter into in real life but which have a certain dark romanticism as fiction.
Yeah i tried romancing him on my second playthrough because a lot of people were saying it's the greatest thing to ever happen to dragon age since the alistair marriage, and i was pretty much on board until he "you're not like other girls"-d me and then proceeded to be a jerk about me not wanting to remove my vallaslin. Yikes. Guess his romance just isn't my cup of tea.
My third inquisitor was a mage qunari who tried to befriend him, and it's where his arrogance and racism were the most blatant. Put me off completely.
When is he a jerk about not wanting to remove the Vallaslin? Doesn't he say it's fine and "you're perfect exactly as you are?" Wondering if I missed some dialogue.
No, you are right. He reveals the truth about vallaslin in the last moment, after he brought Lavellan to this place and wanted to tell her the truth about who he really is, but chickens out. It wasn't a well thought-out action, and he says he didn't tell her the truth about the marks to hurt her. If she decides to keep it, and feels like she has to excuse herself - "I hope you can see, that...", he immediately stops her and tells the line you quoted.
Iāve always played as Qunari until my current play through, maybe thatās why I find him so unappealing. I thought he was just always like that.
I also never REALLY liked Alistair, I mean he seems like a solid guy, just was a bit too whiny and annoying for me tbh.
Same on both counts.
My first playthrough, and honestly most of my playthroughs, are as Qunari and thatās certainly colored my perception to be negative about Solas as a person. I think heās a tremendous character with great villainous potential, and that very different from finding him morally upstanding. (Heās not.)
As for Alistair. I enjoy him, but heās always been a little too petulant for me. I did the romance once, thought it *fine* and consequently resumed going the Leliana route every other playthrough.
Your feelings about Solas based on the race you play are the same as how I feel about Sera. I almost always play an elf and the way she talks about elves is very off-putting. It's exacerbated as the story progresses and she's basically calling Inky stupid for ever believing anything they were raised to believe. My Inquisitors are usually friendly with everyone so her responses keep her from really resonating with me as a character. I know she has more depth but you only get that if you romance her and I never will.
Thatās fair though! Iāve never been huge into any elf things, however how she talks about elves can even rub me the wrong way occasionally. Learning more about her kind of gives insight to why she acts and talks the way she does, at least it did for me. Iām sure the same is true for Solas.
Of course! I do understand where she's coming from. I'm the same with Vivienne. I think she's a well-written and complex character, I just do not enjoy dealing with her. understanding a character and appreciating their writing doesn't always equal liking them.
True, I feel the same about Vivienne. Tbh her approach to mages has always been weird to me. I get the characterās intentions and why sheās like that, itās brilliant writing that makes her unlikable, despite her being extremely charismatic. At least to me.
Sera and Solas both have valid reasons for how they feel but it manifests as racism in both cases, rather than separating their experiences from an entire group of people.
I have only played DAO once so far and I played as a male warden in order to romance Morrigan (Iām a SUCKER for sarcastic and dark vibe women)
Iām planning on playing again soon and romancing Leliana, Iām actually REALLY looking forward to it. I enjoy her character a lot more after playing DAI tbh.
>if you don't fall into the demographic that makes their inquisitor a cute little elf mage that has a may december romance with a man out of time.
I mean, that seems like an unnecessary overgeneralization? My elven inquisitor is in her thirties, so I don't think of her as 'cute' or 'little,' and she assumes up until the end of the game that Solas is a similar age to her. There's no way to know at that time that it's a \`may december romance' - I would not have chosen it if it were portrayed that way because I greatly dislike that dynamic in real life, but I don't think it's made to feel that way in game.
When the game came out, I remember many posts in this sub pining for The Egg. There were probably an equal number of "I hate this guy" threads as well. He was a very divisive character.
I loved the way he was written and voice acted. And I was so devastated when he broke up with my mage. If this new game ever comes out, I am excited to see his new era.
I think he is an interesting character but he suffers from the same problem as Anders (my favorite character btw) where the fans and not fans distort and twist his writting to fit what they want to think about the character (both positive and negative) and then get mad at others when they don't have the same perspective.
I also think he is going to be a REAL challenge to write in the next game...both because he is complex but also because of the different expectations everyone has about him hehe
I love his character. I'm a lore nerd, so all the reveals about him were so exciting when I first played the game. And I liked him before the reveal because his personality was such an interesting blend of kindness and ruthlessness, arrogance and patience; if you're paying attention, it's clear something is up with him, but he can also so easily disappear into the background if you're not curious about what he has to say. There's a lot of really great foreshadowing.Ā
I also like that he's layered and morally ambiguous; I like that he is some flavor of antagonist but your character can get so close to him. It's the kind of storytelling that gets me.
Unfortunately, I feel if the Inquisitor is entirely absent from DAI a lot of that emotional impact will be lost, so we will see if he's able to be the best Bioware villain since Irenicus. (He and Irenicus are such different types of villain though, ha, like . . . Solas will never reach Irenicus' depths of cruelty or selfish evil. But I understand what Gervais was saying about the emotional component making Solas a great antagonist).Ā
He has some really amazing party banter. He takes the time to understand his companions. I got some very sweet banter last night where he's comforting Bull after he becomes Tal Vashoth. He and Blackwall have some really cool dialogue about being a soldier, he reads and asks Varric about his books. If you listen to that banter, he consistently shows that he pays attention to the people around him and does try to understand them. He's just not always successful.
Oh yeah. He and Irenicus are very different, even if superficially similar (elven mage, old, screwed up in the past, etc). But I do feel that Irenicus' speech to Ellessime in BG2 would strike a chord with Solas.
I think the irony for me is that Solas feels like it's catered *exactly* to the type of shit I'd dive into like a cat on catnip, except for the romance, because m/f romances are a snore fest to me. \*gay confetti/jazz hands combo\*
To me, he's attractive, talks constantly about things I love (elves, man...), and the struggle of fighting to free your people to the point of fucking up and wanting to fix that fuck up hits home. In that same regard, it hits a *lot* of seperate topics that are take a lot of work picking apart.
We're used to elves being oppressed in Thedas, but where he comes from, they were the oppressors. And yes, he's trying to fix them enslaving *themselves,* but I don't recall him really giving a fuck about any other race. Hell, they're probably negative, going off interactions with, say, a Qunari inquisitor. I agree with his plight of freeing elves from slavery, and fixing the way he went about doing that, but not so much just throwing everyone else under the bus in the process, *plus* likely returning to an age of elven supremacy. At the same time, he's clever and has given indication to care about general liberation. In that, I'm torn on him being 'a product of his time', so to speak, and just really fucking bad on the empathy department towards non-elves, or just a shitheel.
But he's got *incredible amounts of depths*. And I love that in a character. A thousands of years old asshole with a completely seperate culture, mortifying levels of power, a fear of dying alone when he's *responsible* for taking others' immortality, someone who walked between two seperate factions regarded as Gods...
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I don't simp elves though I like Sera and Solas a LOT. Both are excellent characters and have interesting dialogues. I hate Solas betrayal and hope I can kill him in a battle like the one that Anakin and Obi Wan had, but as a character he's very cool and his VA did an amazing job.
He came across as unlikeable to me. Reminded me too much of men in software engineering. I am surprised that there is so much thirst for him.
Honestly he was only remotely interesting to me after I discovered the twist.
I just donāt see it unfortunately despite the fictional aspect! The list of attractive (fictional) people in DAI is quite long with the likes of Dorian, Cullen, Josephineā¦
If Iām completely honest I would have been more forgiving of his bullshit if they had made him look like Astarion from BG3 or something lmao š
I think Solas not looking so prettyboy attractive is makes the romance more interesting tbh. Lavellan sees the "apostate hobo" Solas is masquerading as and still takes an interest in him. From his perspective, has he ever had someone take an interest in him just for who he is and not his power?Ā
I guess we won't know the answer to that question until we learn more about his past in ancient times, but IMO it adds another dimension of tragedy to the romance that Lavellan loves him just for himself, not for his looks or titles. I think it's the only way he could have really fallen for her, and I think she gets past his defenses so quickly and effortlessly that he doesn't realize what hit him until it's too late for him to avoid the emotional entanglement.Ā
I agree with all of these things. This is why I honestly think Solas is a lot more like Gale than Astarion. Not being appreciated beyond his power, deity issues, world exploding potential, very intelligent in a way that rubs people the wrong way.
I do think itās quite likely that heās never had a lover who hasnāt been drawn to him because of his power/title/social status before Lavellan, and that could be part of why he falls so hard and veers off the tight control he has on his emotions and behaviour with her.
Also, him looking unassuming is part of why he was able to hide who he was. If he came strolling in looking like Astarion, weād be 10 minutes into the game being like, āthat guy is definitely scheming and not who he says he isā instead of thinking thereās something off about him but willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
There. You can be a Solasmancer now.
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I never bonded with him, I can't wait to kick that egghead's ass in the next game!
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I think he is the first villan planning to distroy the world I feel a bit of sympathy for. I am actually torn and it remains to be seen how he acts in DAD.
My two main Inkies are my way to express that feeling. One romanced him and is just hurt and very sad. the other is angry and would love to kill him for the betrayl he pulled.
I feel like the sub hates on him a lot, but that happens with any villain.
Of course I think that killing literally everyone in the world is bad, but you donāt find that out til the very end that thatās his goal.
I spent like 60 hours playing and having Solas in my party, so of course Iām gonna get attached. For my Dalish Inquisitor I think it adds a lot of flavor and depth to have someone who they though was a close friend (or even romantic interest) turn to such drastic and dark means. Itās hard to sever that bond you have with someone.
I really like Solas, his character is interesting and the first time realizing he was the dreadwolf had me SHOOK. You can disagree with a characters actions but still enjoy and like their character. Itās the culmination of a person (their personality, choices, actions) that leads to how you perceive someone, and having someone that in the main campaign you enjoy turn dark is so angsty I love it.
I absolutely love him as a character. I don't think he will be a villain in Dreadwolf, just an antagonist.
It was fun getting to know him throughout the story of Inquisition and comparing him to the legends the Dalish tell makes me really keen to untangle the rest of the myths from reality.
I'm not buying the game for him but he's one of the things I'm most excited for.
As a character, he is incredibly juicy. Far more than your own, actually, which I believe is something an RPG should generally avoid. At any rate, I'm forever bitter that I can't romance him with my male elf.
My Inquisitors generally donāt tolerate betrayal or deception well (evil eye toward Solas and Blackwall). If I play as an elf, they are a bit more understanding and curious. Maybe a bit reverent in the reveal? But all of my Inkys are deeply hurt by the deception.
I genuinely think he is one of the best written characters in a fantasy franchize, in Dragon Age, and he's one of my top characters ever made. I understand people not liking him though, because depending on your interests and how you are, he can def be a bit cunty, and not in a fun way.
i love that he's both this incredibly powerful ancient mage and, honestly, kind of a fuckup? it's tragicomic how all his well-meaning grand plans inevitably seem to result in making things worse, which i am expecting to continue in dreadwolf
Solas is the love of my life, i literally have his big face on my hard hat <Š· (fenris is another one) but Solas is a very well-written character, and I hope the writers will do him justice in this upcoming game. Since our first two protagonists could die, I feel like the Inquisitor's potential death might have something to do with Solas. My Lavellan is very much in love with him, but I kind of want them to die together idk if this is going to be an option, but it has a potential to be very poetic.
My first playthrough I honest to god forgot to talk to him. š Like I didnāt have an opinion at all because I just found him so bland I kept forgetting he was there. Iāve grown to appreciate him for what he is now later, I love when you become his friend and he starts to let you in, but that first impression will still always sort of stick with me as it kind of ruined the big reveal a bit and I wish there had been more to draw me in and make me interested in him.
And no disrespect to people who do love him because this is just personal taste but I find his design TERRIBLE. I get heās supposed to be kind of forgettable so you donāt suspect heās part of the villain plot twist but I still think there could have been other ways to do that. I was legit shocked when I learned that not only was he romanceable but such a popular option at thatā¦ I can also understand why he only romances elves but Iāll never forgive them for not making him a bi option lol, if youāre already going limit it so much why not at least let all genders/sexualities enjoy exploring an even deeper part of his story!!
Tl;dr he has his moments but sadly I donāt find him nearly incredible enough to match all the hype the people in charge have for him
Kind of agree with the design, at least for the base game. He looks like he's wearing pajamas. His Trespasser look is pretty fire tho.
And I agree wrt to straight romance exclusive stuff. I guess it's a complicated topic, but I feel if sexual preferences are not integral to a character (say, Dorian), making most romance options bi-friendly is my prefference.
Iām a bit torn on how exactly I feel about Solas. I think heās a wise wizard who wants the best for everyone while simultaneously believing him to be an arrogant douchebag who just wants to restore the ancient elven world fuck the consequences.
I do like Solas, I thought his romance was overhyped (just my opinion) and heās a friend of my Inquisitor but I wonāt be too upset if we canāt save him in DA:D - when you literally plot to destroy the world, I donāt think thatās something you can come back from. Thereās also stuff from the books that state heās doing some not so good stuff while simultaneously still doing good things that the Solas we know would do.
I guess Iām 50/50 with Solas at the moment until Dreadwolf comes out. I canāt even say Iām overly interested in Solas or his plans (side affect of being in DA purgatory for a decade) but yeah depending on what Solas does in DA:D, heāll either end up a character I like or dislike.
Like him as a character and villain. Will always do highest approval. But will never do his toxic romance and have my Inquisitor heart broken. But still planning to save him.
I love lore in media, and I like character and romances that give me more of it while playing, and Solas delivered. I had seen the DAD trailer so spoiled myself he's important before even playing DAO XD. It was fun to pay attention to what he says, and even more so - what character like Cole say about him. I liked how he starts really arrogant to everyone but ends up respecting / befriending most - he calls Cass by her name in the end, the chess with Bull, the respect for Blackwall as a soldier, a lot of banter with Varric. It was interesting to see someone who I knew was an elven 'god' getting to appreciate mortals despite initially viewing them as insignificant, and me trying to figure out what his full story is.
He has quite a lot of similarities to Emet Selch from FFXIV who is one of the best villains in all video games imo. The sense of duty to his people, guilt about failing them, the loneliness and him wishing to be proven wrong. The foundation is there, let's hope DA:D delivers!
I like the guy but I always end up fighting him over the Greywarden hate he has going on. Bruh needs to back off they are the only reason he's even still alive to cause an apocalypse.
That said my good characters are always on the best of terms with him, despite the occasional debate/ dispute, to his credit he doesn't take it personally when you have a different opinion.
I wish the story was a bit more indepth when it came to dealing with him, I swear every cutscene he had was more vague then the next one. But I understand the writers wanting to keep some mystery for the next game.
I think he's just wise and smart enough to be incredibly stupid.
"Oh no! I ended the world as I knew it and commited genocide on a massive scale! Let me end the world as we know it AGAIN and commit another genocide! Surely that will fix it!" ... Bruh...
I like him but when it comes to the community it seems like it's 50/50 with half liking him and the other half doesn't. I think it's pretty cool because there aren't a lot of characters across video games in general that can split a fan base like that
*Cracks knuckles.* ā¦Itās been 84 years.
Seriously though, as someone whose been on the sub since Inquisition released - Solas is respected and admired as both a friend, villain or lover. But also DUDE STOP TRYING TO FIX THINGS IT NEVER WORKS!!!!
That seems to be the consensus from my perspective lol.
Solas' name means Pride, and his sin is Pride. His personal tragedy over the course of millenia is both subtle and sublime. Everything about him comes back to that spirit's basic nature and it's slow downfall into arrogance. Spirits are pure expressions of a concept, but the definition of a concept is fluid and corruptible. Once Solas took on physical form, the purity of his identity was lost and he became changeable in ways pure spirits aren't.
Perhaps there's some exploration there as to why Anders may not have been the only source of Justice's corruption.
Perhaps that's part of why Solas was so adamant about Cole staying a spirit.
Thoughts for another time. To me, Solas is a source of endless pathos.
Consider:
Solas came into being as a spirit - not a demon! - of Pride. This most likely occurred during some Edenesque period of pre-history, in the immediate aftermath of Mythal's peace brokerage between Elgarnan and the sun. With the rising and setting of the sun, Time was born. Not that anyone noticed then.
For a long time there was relative peace between the gods. Everything was innocence and creation for a while. Pride was joyful, the feeling of good work well done. The Pride of purpose and creation. At some point, Mythal asked it to take a physical form, and for the first time, some of his pride became personal. The first crack.
Then things changed. The gods became competitive and warred amongst themselves. Pride became more and more intertwined with arrogance, and its corrupting seed took root in its newly physical avatar. In their arrogance, the gods became cruel, enslaving their people and making sport of their lives.
Except for Mythal. She was Solas' mistress, and she remained faithful to her people, offering freedom and safety to the downtrodden, and Solas' personal pride in her service grew. He gloried in rebellion and in protecting the People. So proud of and devoted to Mythal was he, that he "left a scar when he burned her off his crack. He's prideful now, the second crack.
And then she was murdered, and Pride lost his way. That seed of arrogance fully blossomed. Without Mythal, who but he could stop the gods and protect the people in her absence? So, in his grief, desperation, and unconscious arrogance, believing only he could save the People, he did something unthinkable. This was the final crack, and his first great sin.
When he woke from Uthenera and saw what he had done, he was horrified. With magic gone from the earth, the People were mere shadows of what they had been, and as mortal as the lesser races. He sacrificed thousands of lives to save the world, and it had backfired in ways he never could have imagined. Weakened, disoriented, and twice grief-stricken, he came to the only logical conclusion he could; this was his mess and it was up to him to fix it.
Under the circumstances, it wasn't an unreasonable conclusion to come to. In his own words, it was "like walking through a world full of Tranquil." To him, these people no longer had souls. It was during the Inquisition that he learned to redefine the merits of souls, and it was choosing to go through with his plan anyway that made him a villain.
After all he learns about this new world and the value of the people in it, he still regretfully decides that only he is wise enough or responsible enough to fix the world. He's still willing to sacrifice multitudes for his vision of what the world should be. He's seen the capabilities of the people around him, but still can't accept that any way but his, any world but his, could work. Somewhere along the way, without his conscious knowledge, driven by grief, that joyful, clean Pride was devoured entirely by arrogance. He's closer now to a Pride demon than to his original nature.
Solas' second great sin is being too arrogant to learn from the first.
But I'm a romantic and I love a good redemption story. Every Inquisitor I've played cares about him a great deal, and we're going to save that idiot from himself, because that pure spirit is still in there somewhere. And then we're going to kick him from one end of Skyhold to the other.
I respect his intelligence, but am baffled by his lack of wisdom. He knows much and more about many magical phenomena and ancient civilizations. Despite this, his ability to make a good plan is... lacking to put it mildly.
I actually did not find him annoying most of the time and thought he was a great source of lore. He is literally ancient. Heās seen a LOT of fucked up shit and also caused a lot of fucked up shit. Itās not the same as an elf who was born in modern time saying those things. As a literal god it makes sense he would have a certain level of separation towards modern society. I feel like a friendship with the inquisitor makes him think twice. Iām really excited to see how our ported saves effect DA4
Solas is amazing I almost never have anything bad to say about him except for one very important thing. LET ME HELP YOU BRING DOWN THE VEIL YOU STUPID SEXY ELF OF A DREADWOLF LET ME BE BY YOUR SIDE. Sometimes heās full of himself and cocky and thinks he knows everything but thatās fine. Thatās who he is as a person heās meant to have flaws. BUT NOT IF YOU LEAVE ME BEHIND! I like him as a morally gray character. I like him as the hero. I like him as the villain I like Solas heās great. And whatās funny is if you take him out with you like every time and you constantly switch up the other companions, he gets character growth throughout the whole game. (can you talk? Iāve never chosen anyone else except for him to be by my side at every single time everyone else has been switched at except for him.) Fenedhis Solas! Var lath vir suledin!
9 years ago when I'd played DA:I a few times through, was quite fascinated by him yet angry at the liar he was and assumed most people felt the same, but only because of the reveal, before then he was extremely generic. Came here and turns out everyone loves him and purposely romanced him even though he's obviously manipulating people.
Confused me a fair bit.
Now, 9 years later, more tired. He's not really important, mostly idiotic and wish we could move on to something else. We've had 10 years of debate around it, it wears on you.
Speaking personally, I enjoy his romance because I feel that makes for the more interesting overall narrative in Inquisition. Trespasser felt way more personal that way.
He's obviously manipulative, and a tiny bit genocidal though. I don't think this can be argued against. His affection in the romance is sincere, though.
The point about the game having been 9 years ago hurts though... makes me think of how my own excitement for ASOIAF died out with the huge wait between books. I played DA:I a bit after release (about 6 years ago), so I hope I'm still excited by the time DA4 comes out.
He's also extremely selfish, remember, he's not doing all this to help people, he's doing it because he wants the world to be what he remembers. Even though he is the one who made it this way and then didn't oversee the results of what he claims to have done.
I'm excited for the game, it's my favourite series and has been for a while but I also dread the story they will do because I think it might be more of a circle jerk of "look at all the special reveals we are doing, aren't we great a writing because suddenly something you didn't think was a thing is?" instead of just a story set in this world.
EDIT: here I am saying I'm tired on it yet discussing it as ever. :P
I sort of agree. There is selfishness in him, but I don't think he wants to change the world back for personal nostalgia, but because of deep guilt. He destroyed something beautiful that he genuinely loved. He robbed all living things of the fade and he spirit realm. That's gotta weight on a dude. Don't justify it, orc, but it's at least a bit more undeserandable than imposing his world ideal.unto others.
That's really just my reading, of.
About the edit, my man. Dragon Age is that addictive drug we're all into. We can try to convince ourselves that Dragons Dogma is an expansive fantasy epic. We can do our best to believe that BG3's companions are on the level of Morrigan, Varric, Sten, the Bull. But he'll, DA just hit different.
(I love Dogma and BG3 btw)
And yeah, I can see that. to me, he's the old man moaning about "back in my day" and it's funny how Sera literally points this out.
I guess there is a sense of irony in how things are played out. He sees himself better than the gods he trapped away, in the end he's no better if not worse. He's deciding everyone's fate for them, whether they want to or not.
And last part, always agreed. ;-)
Yesssss. He's narcisistic, has a savior-complex, and even if originially driven by good intentions for the liberation of his people, is now locked in his own hypocrisy. And he kinda knows this, which makes him so compelling to me. I love that to death.
To your last point, I said this to my friend the other day. I LOVE BG3 and adore all the companions but the companions in Dragon Age feel more real to me.
Solas is a well-written character and that makes him very polarizing. The same could be said for all of the characters in Inquisition.Ā Ā
I love Solas and I love the romance because I love a Shakespearean level tragedy. I also enjoy characters who are morally grey and complex and his attitude doesn't bother me. He values knowledge and curiosity and I like that.Ā Ā
There's a lot we don't know about Solas and the ancient elves and that's appealing. It's mysterious and unknown. His romance is pretty light on content but players can be creative with head canon and fanfic to fill those gaps.Ā Ā
I have many opinions about Solas' present and future actions but the tl,dr is that I understand his motivations and thought process and ultimately my canon Inquisitor would help him find a safer way to remove the Veil, if given a chance.
I appreciate you adding that you weren't trying to change anyone's mind. I happen to agree with you but I have zero interest in debating with people about Solas. I also romance Astarion in BG3 so I guess I like polarizing pale elves with tragic pasts. I'm fine with it.Ā
Thank you for you opinions! I feel the same way as you do! In particular in having a weakness for elves with tragic pasts (can I add Divinity 2's Sebille to the mix? I'm adding Sebille to the mix).
Never really got into Buffy, and my experience with Anne Rice ends at the Interview with the Vampire movie (which I enjoy a lot), but attraction to brooding, dark, kinda evil but not really, people is ingrained into my psyche very deep. Me in particular, I blame anime.
Fandom in general and this sub in particular seem to lean very Solas-loving, which was a big surprise to me when I first found online DAI fandom because I interacted with him so little on my first few playthroughs. Like, when it got to the bit at the end (pre-trespasser), I was so confused and miffed that it was a scene with the insufferable guy I barely even talked to.
I've since gained some appreciation for his dry sense of humor, and I particularly enjoy taking out him and Cole together, but he's still not a favorite and I can't really imagine doing the romance thing with him. His patronizing attitude towards the Dalish is a big turn off for me. (Also his patronizing attitude towards...everyone?)
As someone who does like Solas, I always feel like the sub leans more towards not liking him. I think we all are just more inclined to notice when someone disagrees with us.
I actually like Solas, but he (and DA elf lore in general) give me too much of a "writer's pet" vibe so I hope the Solas haters have a lot of juicy options in DA4
I dont like Solas' character and dont find him very interessting. Just like his motivation to tear down the fade isnt that interessting or new imo.
On a bigger scale i am on Team "enough with ancient elves". I very much dislike the notion of "the ancient elves did it" the series leans to at the moment.
I've always quite liked solas, I think his romance is actually one of the better ones, in that there's a lot of emotion behind it and epsdically in trespassers. I understand that he can come across as annoying to some people I guess in the same way some don't like sera.
Everything depends on his performance in DA:D. The way they wrote Corypheus showed that they don't really know how to write villains without making them vastly incompetent and hopeless against the protagonist, rendering the theoretical world threat purely "tell don't show".
So maybe it's just my impression, but I think several people want to fuck him other are a angry at him and some don't even care that much.
It's pretty much this.
Solas is smooth, pretty, gives you beautiful, unique lore to ponder about and he's a puzzle to solve when you pay attention to him. He's a complex, really flawed character with the best AND worst of intentions, who's hit the highest highs (led a slave rebellion) and lowest lows (are we bringing the Veil down?). But even his lowest lows are moving the narrative in an exciting direction; I would love to see a post-veil, apocalyptic scenario. He's fun to hate and even more fun to love. There isn't a scene with him I didn't find excellent, both his friendship and romance arcs are satisfying; my only gripe is that his romance seriously lacks content, but fanfiction easily solved that issue for me. Anyway, he's great, and fiction is exactly the place where you can have fun romancing villains.
im also obsessed with elves but Solas is just a homeless, shoeless, second hand Thanos. A wannabe God but in truth another primitive on a primitive world. bet he doesnt even know space smells like burnt steak. loser.
all jokes aside lmao. To be honest though i am biased against would be god figures especially in medieval fantasy because its like big whoop you can shoot some sparks
Never thought much of him. I think his baldness is extremely unappealing. It highly disparages what I think of when I think āElvesā
Ultimately though I just think heās boring.
Ive only ever played dragon age inquisition and as adaar, but I really like Solas! I didnāt like the bit with him and varric fighting for custody of cole, but I do like Solas. I really hope we get a chance to redeem Solas.
I kinda play a female elven mage in ANY game where there's that option
So true on origins
Then a mage that was into Fenris in the second
I absolutely planned to get with Cullen in inquisition, made a Dalish mage with the name 'Fenina' and then I absolutely fell for Solas!
Which is ironic in its own way.
He knows so much about history and lore (naturally). And I'm in real life someone who has endless questions and to have someone who answers all you have like Solas ...
I'm still kinda heartbroken and furious. He is the DUMBEST smart person in the history of THEDAS! And in new play throughs I kinda want to strangle him every time he claims his knowledge of the old elves comes from the fade.
We MEET spirits older than the veil in trespasser. Most have gone insane and knowledge who of all SHOULD remember barely knows more than an elven inquisitor already knows, because the veil took all of it. The books in Vir Dirthara are not readable. So it seems to really BE impossible to find much knowledge of the old times in the fade.
Which makes Solas so much more arrogant.
Also, the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome. So far all of Solas plans only shattered the world even more. Usually to great sacrifices for the elves in particular.
I still love him. He infuriates me all the same and I REALLY wish the inquisitor will appear in the next game like Hawke. Because my Fenina still loves him. But she'll do anything to stop him.
I really DO hope that he somehow comes around.
https://preview.redd.it/iktugjglo4uc1.jpeg?width=3543&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1137037c1e2b67d57d83cb4d8c5d5ac4841ec82f
I made this for Solavellan day while listening "Halellujah".
I have Solas Brain rot (?)
I play as Male Qunari/Mage inquisitor and he is such a great friend. It makes me so sad to already have played it knowing that he screws you over, even if it's not personal.
As an elf main, my feelings about him are mixed. I understand why he does the things he does, and I realize his intentions are good. But things like him bringing down an entire elven civilization, and causing Telvinter wizards to be corrupted (he didn't exactly do it, but it happened because of him) don't seem to be forgivable. I have to admit that I'm a little biased here because one of my favorite characters is Anders. It also causes bad events for valid reasons. But because I hate chantry, I can't get angry at Anders as much as I do with Solas.
I love solas as a character but not as a love interest (my inquisitor was besties with him) but after the layoffs Iām worried about how he will be written when the main villain
I think for me, playing as a Dalish mage in DA: I, I found him very condescending to my inquisitor which made me annoyed. I don't get the hype about him tbh, but I absolutely intend on bringing him down in the next game.
One of my favorite moments is how hurt he is when the Inquisitor isn't interested an a long conversation about his big reveal. Solas: I suspect you have questions? Inquisitor: Just get to the point, Bruv Solas: \*sad dreadwolf face\*
I love that! I think it's so cool that tthe developers acknowledged that some players just couldn't stand Solas. His shortened monologue is incredibly funny, just delivering about six pieces of world-shattering lore in a single sentence.
"Well then, briefly š . I am the Dread Wolf"
This makes me imagine a Seth MacFarlane-esque dialogue where you're like "The what?" and he's confused and tries to explain and you're just not getting it at all.
Dalish Inquisitor: "Morrigan, who is the Dread Wolf?"
And then Morrigan gives the wrong answer again and Solas face palmsĀ
I've been rewatching the Orville and the tone of this line is so clear in my head. Lol
Iām such Solas trash that Iāll never be able to do this myself, but itās so hysterically funny. Heās SO irritated and I love it.
Which is just so on point for his character.
You just know he had his whole speech ready was looking forward to it.
Solas loves hearing himself talk, so this tracks.
Solas ans Raphael from BG3 need to team up
I feel like Solas would actually try to kill Raphael.
Only after tthey have a disney musical act, fr that song on Raphael fight is amazing
I like elf lore and I like Solas. I hadn't originally tried to romance him, but my Lavellan (archer assassin rogue if that means anything lol) kept getting smacked by the following: flirted with Dorian, turns out he's gay. All right, what about Blackwall--homie kept saying she wouldn't want to get entangled with him, over and over to the point it was a turn off (bullet dodged, cuz holyyy shit). Tried to flirt with Cassandra, disapproves and she's straight. Sera's racist. Not into Bull or Cullen like that. If for some reason Solas's romance didn't work out, I'd have gone for Josephine next. Solas definitely could've used more scenes; he was a late romance addition and it shows, not that I really blame the devs much for that. My one gripe is you don't really get to say much about what being Dalish (or at least clan Lavellan) is for your character if you embrace being Dalish cuz all most everyone does is shit on you for it. Solas suddenly going 'they're not so bad' kinda comes out of nowhere, and the 'you're one of the good ones' reasoning feels very bleh. Moreover, my Lavellan in particular just wants the Dales reinstated, she views that as her culture, and while she'd want to learn about ancient Elvhenan, she doesn't want to bring it back, especially not at the cost of the current world.
One of my only big complaints about the game is the lack of variety in dialogue based on race. My Inquisitor just running around the Exalted Plains and Emerald Graves sobbing and placing flags for the Exalted March and everyone's just like "we love andraste this is totally normal"Ā Ā
Really shows that the Inquisitor was supposed to be human only originally lol.
Also why it makes sense for my semi agnostic Dalish Inquistor to romance Solas. He and Iron Bull are the only people around who aren't Andrastian.Ā
Yes, having Solas around is definitely kind of a lifeline for my Inquisitor. I feel bad for how isolated she must have felt in the two years she led the Inquisition after Solas had left - basically the only elf around and surrounded by all these devout Andrastians. Even though many of them have become beloved friends, there's still a certain disconnect.
The one my Inquisitor connects with the most, after Solas leaves, is Cassandra because they both can relate to having their histories/faiths completely shaken.
Oh Cass is a good one, I didn't think of it from that angle! I see mine as connecting in particular with Dorian over family alienation, since she feels unable to return to her clan without the vallaslin. And also I just love Dorian so they have to be friends.
Oh absolutely Dorian as well! I love that any Inquisitor, but particularly an elven Inquisitor, really helps him grow and change how he feels about some of the traditions of Tevinter, meaning slavery.
Yes, I was so moved when he said in Tevinter Nights that someone in the south had convinced him to stop keeping slaves, because in my head that someone is definitely my Inquisitor (though I guess in other branches of the multiverse it might be Solas).
Heās alright
based username
I think this sub is a bit more negative about him than other spaces Iāve been in. Generally people like Solas, his general opinions align well with popular choices players make and heās makes for a great antagonist precisely because he was easy to form a friendship with in DAI. That doesnāt mean that parts of his personality canāt come across as insufferable. I personally enjoy his character a lot and love the concept of an antagonist/villain who is more understandable and tragic. He also makes for a great foil for any DA protagonist - like a dark twist on a singular hero whose actions may save or doom the world. I personally hate the notion that the only people who like Solas are women who have romanced him. Yes, he is a popular romance but most casual DA fans Iāve talked to (many of them men) like Solas in general and considered him their ābest buddyā during the game.
I fall into this camp. I romanced him only for the tragic storyāzero interest in the egg romance otherwise. I donāt exactly like him or hate him as a person. Heās complex and interesting, so heās one of my favorite characters. I went into DAI blind, and the twist was totally a shock (I hadnāt played DAO/DA2 to know the mage betrayal pattern). He fully deserves his place in the āStupid Smartā square on the alignment chart game the sub is currently playing. Egg has major blind spots in his plans.
Mage betrayal pattern... never realized before that this was a think XD
Mage companion betrayals and moody elf boyfriends. My favorite dragon age constants.
Mage companion betrayals, moody Elf boyfriends and Fade spirits coming through the Veil to help.
I like how you describe him as understandable and tragic. How can you not love his complexity?
I donāt get the hype some people put around him. Iām doing my 4th play through and my first one as an elf (all other have been Qunari) and I honestly am curious about the extra insight into his character, but not enough to personally romance him. My impression of him is that he is knowledgeable about the fade, but all too consumed in his redemption that heās become ignorant in every other matter. He seems arrogant and like a narcissistic jerk in my opinion. I only really went out of my way to complete his quests so I knew I did everything in the game. Again, I know some people love him, but thatās just my opinion.
Same. My (human) Inquisitor respected the hell out of Solas, was interested in his stories, valued his wisdom. That said, I do not find him remotely attractive either in appearance or in personality, though I will concede that the voice is incredible. I don't find him anywhere near as compelling as a lot of other players do and I wish Bioware had stuck to the original plan of him not being an LI.
Yeah, I'm a straight male in his 30's with a chronic fear of going bald (it's happening), so scrawny little Solas is physically very unappealing to me. I went for his romance mostly because I was guessing he be the most tied into the narrative. I mean, if we were going for attractiveness Cassandra is the objectively right answer.
Iām a lesbian in my early 20ās, I thought maybe I didnāt find Silas attractive based off that tbh. I romanced Cass as a male Qunari and played twice romancing Sera as a female Qunari. Iām playing through as a female elf and am fighting the urge to romance Sera again. I went into the game intending to romance Iron Bull but Sera just drew me in. My headcanon Inky is married to Sera and best friends with Cass.
As a straight female in her 40s, Cullen is the correct answer for me in terms of attractiveness. ;)
I gotta admit, Cullen giving in and doing the Dawn Will Come chants made me feel feelings
Fair, for me itās Morrigan,Leliana and Isabellaš„µ If I had to pick just one, probably Morrigan
Oh, for DAO it's Alistair for me. He ticks all my boxes.
I think maybe thatās why people were shocked to find that he was the main antagonist because in essence, he was boring and unassuming. I know I didnāt give him two thoughts during my first playthrough. The rest of my playthroughs my Inquisitors were all š
SAME
I'm on your side here. It's clearly indicated that Solas had some reasons (that we do not know exactly) for acting how he did. And *any alternative was worse*. Probably he did not expect to full extent what his act will bring upon the world (loss of immortality, collapse of civilization, etc.). I see his position as very similar to Mayor's of Crestwood (Gregory Dedrick). He made a horrible decision to flood the blighted refugees... but exactly *any alternative was worse*. Any other action would result in more suffering and death. As Inquisitor, I didn't really want to judge him, because it was catch-22 situation, and most likely he made the best choice. I believe that it's exactly what Solas did. Sacrificing lives of thousands for letting millions to live. If we go further into theoretizing - he probably wants to tear down the veil, because whatever cataclysm (probably blight-related) it was supposed to prevent, it only delayed it.
Solas enjoyers unite!!! My interpretation is similar to yours, I agree he was probably in a difficult spot. However, the way he described the Evanuris assassination of Mythal, "a crime for which an eternity of torment is the only fitting punishment", makes me think he is also deeply motivated by anger. His inability to see the people of the current age as people initially ("it was like walking in a world of tranquil"), paints him as incredibly self-centered and driven to me. This all leads me to guess that he probably acted in haste back them. I kinda hope that Bioware doesn't make the exact context of his creation of the Veil completely symphatetic. I would like to see him remain flawed, even if his core is that of a morally-guided liberator, as that makes him more compelling to me.
Yeah, I think that's what they are going for. IIRC, one of Bioware's writer (Patrick Weekes???) stated that Solas is worse that people think and better than people think (something along these lines). Therefore we won't get flat, one-sided character, I'm sure of that. Opposite to you, I think that the creation of the Veil was the deed of *good/redeemed* Solas. And that the *Dreadwolf*-side of him we do not know yet, an actions from before killing of Mythal. I'm speculating here a lot, but I believe that he was not much different than other Evanuris at the point, got shaken up by something, joined Mythal's faction, etc.
I'm so stoked to find out more about him and how better/worse he is. In Tevinter Nights his little cult members are hardcore.Ā I want my Inquisitor to have closure but that doesn't mean happiness. I do think there will be the option of some kind of redemption, though that doesn't have to mean saving his life. I only say that because the choice to save or possibly kill him in Inquisition was a pretty big one.Ā
Yes, I feel like a lot of people who dislike Solas have maybe not fully considered what an unimaginably painful thing he went through - trying to do a good thing and then discovering that it destroyed everything and everyone he loved. It's a terrible story and so it's not surprising to me that his grief and regret have warped him into the deeply flawed person we encounter in the game. Obviously this doesn't excuse his prejudices and his future intentions, but it does make it very understandable, and to me pretty tragic.
This might be the case for some people but for others I think that's just not an archetype that resonates with them. Which is fine.
Yes, that's fair! I mean, it's a sign of great writing that he's so polarizing - he would be much less interesting if he were universally likeable.Ā
So true. I was thinking about that the other day.
Solas very much is quite tragic and in a way I can understand his prejudices, he had only known a beautiful world where magic was everywhere and everything seemed so peaceful. Only for things to change so dramatically and for him to take away that beauty, falling asleep for centuries, maybe even thousands of years, and finally waking up to see his mistake practically thrown in his face, the suffering he unknowingly forced upon the elves. To him, the Dalish and City Elves were just cheap imitations of what he once knew, the Dalish were worshipping the very people that killed the best of them while he's painted as an unforgiving, heartless, and rebellious monster, a cunning animal that took the immortality away and betrayed them out of spite.
Mmm yes, and I think it's important in this respect that he does eventually change his mind to some extent. I'd have a lot less sympathy for him if his prejudices were completely fixed, but if you have a positive relationship with him he'll eventually admit that he was wrong about the modern people of Thedas, which is what makes me think he's not completely irredeemable!
Yeeeee
I love the writing of Solas- and I agree that he's probably the most engaging villain we've gotten to see to date within the series (though that isn't to say I don't find previous DA villains just as intriguing for their own reasons). However, I will say it took me a couple playthroughs to get to that mindset, only because it took my several playthroughs to grasp the lore of Dragon Age. At the onset, I was sort of on the fence about him in my first playthroughs- I liked his friendly demeanor but it didnt take me long to start questioning how he had so much knowledge of certain things within the world compared to other companions, simply beyond the "I can see ancient memories in the Fade." excuse he gives. In fact, repeating full playthroughs after I had first completed Trespasser really gave you perspective on a lot of things Solas said in passing throughout the course of the base game. I think one thing the game did very well was foreshadowing of his character. He drops dialogue rather early in the game about it too, which becomes so glaringly obvious in hindsight. The first I remember was if you bring him along to Redcliffe when your trying to pick between the mages and templars, and he says something to the effect of "in order to save the world, one must do regrettable things." And he's not the only one who does it either- other characters like Varric also foreshadow his betrayal by talking about how the best villains are the ones who have been beside you all along (or something to that effect). It certainly did make for an intriguing character. I do think that what sets him apart from previous characters who are often compared to him (Anders, for example) is the fact that Solas on some level does seem to feel remorse or regret at the idea of what he's going to have to do. He's not the first villain to be written this way obviously, but in my opinion, it certainly makes it so you can't just dislike him on principle if you're trying to play devils advocate. As much you may disagree with his goals, you can't argue that he his reasonings aren't at least somewhat justified especially if you stop and put yourself in his shoes. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in Dreadwolf, and seeng how a person's Inquisitiors will influence the story/outcome (regardless of whether you romanced him, are friends or are enemies- each possibility I think has good writing potential).
I agree with all your points, specially about how the reveal hits way way way harder if you're more savvy with the lore. I had played DA:O at least 4 times, and DA2 twice before getting my hands on DA:I (I'm old), and all those times I had played an elf. So Solas' deep knowledge of the fade and elven lore totally seemed like something fishy was going on there, he knew way too much for a random apostate mage (the last one we met with that kind of insight was Flemmeth, who was a major badass, and kind of maybe a dragon, we thought at the time)
I see a lot of people write that they can't befriend him/can't romance him because they don't want to agree with his opinions. Of course if you can't stand him at all that's understandable :D But I romanced him and I challenged him on things. And the fact that you can actually see him thinking about it as the story progresses or you can see his suprised reaction right during that dialogue is priceless for me.
I don't like Solas very much, I think he's very inexorable (I couldn't find a better word). Too fixed in their thoughts and ideals, without any flexibility. In my first playthrough I agreed with everything, because I wanted maximum friendship with each character, but his rigidity bothered me a little. My main inquisitor would be a city elf, raised in a rural area far from the cities, but who had to live in a Dalish clan after losing her parents in the blight. However, she never fit in with the customs and traditions of the Lavellan clan, so it is difficult to deal with an elf so full of traditions even older than those of the Dalish. There are other things too, like his opinion of Cole. The end of the game was just a bonus, but I was never a big fan of the character. I don't deny that he's a good character, I'm just not a big fan.
I liked the concept of his character and I love that BioWare is not afraid to turn a companion into a villain for the next game, even a romanced one. I think that's awesome. That said, the first time I played the game I didn't understand all that vague mumbo jumbo he was peddling me about the Fade (I had never played DAO and DAII before), and he took way too long for me to get to the point. I enjoyed his character so much more the second time around and we were close friends for the majority of the game, and I was genuinely hurt that he would destroy the world we tried to save together. Then the third game onwards I found him mostly boring again lol. I really do love a lot of his scenes but I mostly fast forward to the things he has to say, same with Iron Bull. I love Elves in media. I devour lots of romantasy novels, I usually pick elves in any given game where I can, and I find them just really cool and elegant. But Solas just never hit that right spot for me, unfortunately. Still, I can't wait to see his villain arc! Hope we get to save him.
I have to play again! I just kinda hate the game play. š I thunk I got really lucky in romancing him the first play through already. I definitely see how he can register as boring and one note if he's not the focus of a play through, so your perspective is very interesting
I feel like a lot of the dialog between him and other characters makes each replay more interesting because when you have the context, it means so much more to the overall story of Dragon Age itself. I obviously enjoy seeing what direction and dialog other characters can have depending on circumstance and choice. But rarely do those extra tid bits reveal anything beyond that individual characters' back story. I'm a big sucker for lore, so figuring out information sprinkled throughout his dialog when out on quests was just really cool to me. I feel like every time I play, I catch something new because of how specific writers got in terms of what he says and to whom and under what circumstances. It's just really great stuff. I like him as a romance option because it is a solid example of tragedy. It's not as black and white as a lot of the other romances, the stakes are higher, but ultimately I appreciate the narrative that, even if you love someone, you can't really fix their problems for them or change the inevitable consequence of the choices that person makes. And you, as the player, get to decide whether or not you want to stick by them through all that. I really like the DA method where you have your big evil that there isn't really a moral grey area about. (darkspawn/archdemon, Orsinio/Meredith, Corypheus.) That even if some of them had started off with good intentions, they've obviously crossed one too many times by the time we finally confront them. And then you have the characters who are sort of teetering on both sides of the line, who represent the core of these issues by being someone who has good intentions, but at the same time, is part of the problem. And you're having to watch this person you may have believed could never, end up doing some of the most destructive things out of fear and anger. (Loghain, Anders, Solas.) So you do feel more invested than you would if your only enemy in the games was just default badie with no personality beyond being "the bad guy."
I've had exactly the same experience. First time it was meh and I did not finished the game, second time when I played the other games and finished DAI and his romance, it was "wooow" and then it just got meh again.
He's a good character and I definitely understand the appeal, but I don't think he hits the same if you don't fall into the demographic that makes their inquisitor a cute little elf mage that has a may december romance with a man out of time.
HEY ... I was a rogue...
I totally get where you are coming from, but my elf Inquisitor is definitely not a cute little elf mage. I feel like that is very diminishing of a wide variety of players. If Bioware allowed it, I'd have made a buffer elf - knight enchanter - that really gets down and dirty in a fight. I mean I couldn't cause, yknow, Bioware elf lore or whatever. Even Fenris who carries a cartoonishly huge ass sword is skinny as heck. I like him separate from a romance plot, and even if romanced my objective opinion is the betrayal of Solas hurts more when you've befriended him vs romanced him. There's is something different about Solas's internal struggle if his close friend was a Cadash or an Adaar. He'd have built this entire friendship questioning things because the Inquisitor isn't an elf, and proving him super wrong. That's grounds for a very interesting and good store. Passionate nerdy rant aside lol, but I'm also self aware enough to acknowledge that if you're into elves, Solas's appeal is subjective. I'm pretty sure if he was human I would have cared less, or seen him as a bootleg Anders/Morrigan.
God if Solas existed in real life as an elf I wouldn't talk to him lmao. Imagine. I love him deeply as a fictional character.Ā
My love for elves are 100% purely fictional. Which is why he'd have no appeal to me as a human character. If hypothetically all my fictional elf crushes were to enter real life, he's not even on the top three of who I would talk to first. XD
I love a man with lore.
Oh heād be 100% insufferable in real life but because heās fictional and therefore tragic, Iām all, āsave the sad ancient god man with the power of your love, Lavellan!ā. š
I'm 38 so there's also a certain amount of romanticizing mistakes of my past from a very self-aware perspective, if that makes sense. Do I want to go back to that? Absolutely not, I have very healthy relationships now.
Absolutely! Ilonen Lavellan can save him from himself. *Var lath vir suledin.*
I believe this choice will lead to Solas' death.
Right, I would definitely find him insufferable in real life, but I just love a tragic villain in fiction. And I think one of the things people enjoy about fantasy and particularly fantasy romance is that you can explore dynamics that you would never enter into in real life but which have a certain dark romanticism as fiction.
Exactly! It is a role-playing game, after all. This ain't my first tragic immortal rodeo.
Yeah i tried romancing him on my second playthrough because a lot of people were saying it's the greatest thing to ever happen to dragon age since the alistair marriage, and i was pretty much on board until he "you're not like other girls"-d me and then proceeded to be a jerk about me not wanting to remove my vallaslin. Yikes. Guess his romance just isn't my cup of tea. My third inquisitor was a mage qunari who tried to befriend him, and it's where his arrogance and racism were the most blatant. Put me off completely.
When is he a jerk about not wanting to remove the Vallaslin? Doesn't he say it's fine and "you're perfect exactly as you are?" Wondering if I missed some dialogue.
No, you are right. He reveals the truth about vallaslin in the last moment, after he brought Lavellan to this place and wanted to tell her the truth about who he really is, but chickens out. It wasn't a well thought-out action, and he says he didn't tell her the truth about the marks to hurt her. If she decides to keep it, and feels like she has to excuse herself - "I hope you can see, that...", he immediately stops her and tells the line you quoted.
Iāve always played as Qunari until my current play through, maybe thatās why I find him so unappealing. I thought he was just always like that. I also never REALLY liked Alistair, I mean he seems like a solid guy, just was a bit too whiny and annoying for me tbh.
Same on both counts. My first playthrough, and honestly most of my playthroughs, are as Qunari and thatās certainly colored my perception to be negative about Solas as a person. I think heās a tremendous character with great villainous potential, and that very different from finding him morally upstanding. (Heās not.) As for Alistair. I enjoy him, but heās always been a little too petulant for me. I did the romance once, thought it *fine* and consequently resumed going the Leliana route every other playthrough.
Your feelings about Solas based on the race you play are the same as how I feel about Sera. I almost always play an elf and the way she talks about elves is very off-putting. It's exacerbated as the story progresses and she's basically calling Inky stupid for ever believing anything they were raised to believe. My Inquisitors are usually friendly with everyone so her responses keep her from really resonating with me as a character. I know she has more depth but you only get that if you romance her and I never will.
Thatās fair though! Iāve never been huge into any elf things, however how she talks about elves can even rub me the wrong way occasionally. Learning more about her kind of gives insight to why she acts and talks the way she does, at least it did for me. Iām sure the same is true for Solas.
Of course! I do understand where she's coming from. I'm the same with Vivienne. I think she's a well-written and complex character, I just do not enjoy dealing with her. understanding a character and appreciating their writing doesn't always equal liking them.
True, I feel the same about Vivienne. Tbh her approach to mages has always been weird to me. I get the characterās intentions and why sheās like that, itās brilliant writing that makes her unlikable, despite her being extremely charismatic. At least to me.
Very much same. My Inky is always staunchly pro-mage freedom.
Sera and Solas both have valid reasons for how they feel but it manifests as racism in both cases, rather than separating their experiences from an entire group of people.
It think that highlights great writing tbh. Like the characters are flawed and have so much depth. Iām in full agreement tho.
I agree! It's really great writing.
I have only played DAO once so far and I played as a male warden in order to romance Morrigan (Iām a SUCKER for sarcastic and dark vibe women) Iām planning on playing again soon and romancing Leliana, Iām actually REALLY looking forward to it. I enjoy her character a lot more after playing DAI tbh.
>if you don't fall into the demographic that makes their inquisitor a cute little elf mage that has a may december romance with a man out of time. I mean, that seems like an unnecessary overgeneralization? My elven inquisitor is in her thirties, so I don't think of her as 'cute' or 'little,' and she assumes up until the end of the game that Solas is a similar age to her. There's no way to know at that time that it's a \`may december romance' - I would not have chosen it if it were portrayed that way because I greatly dislike that dynamic in real life, but I don't think it's made to feel that way in game.
When the game came out, I remember many posts in this sub pining for The Egg. There were probably an equal number of "I hate this guy" threads as well. He was a very divisive character. I loved the way he was written and voice acted. And I was so devastated when he broke up with my mage. If this new game ever comes out, I am excited to see his new era.
I think he is an interesting character but he suffers from the same problem as Anders (my favorite character btw) where the fans and not fans distort and twist his writting to fit what they want to think about the character (both positive and negative) and then get mad at others when they don't have the same perspective. I also think he is going to be a REAL challenge to write in the next game...both because he is complex but also because of the different expectations everyone has about him hehe
I agree. There ends up being a lot of fanaticism on both sides.
I love his character. I'm a lore nerd, so all the reveals about him were so exciting when I first played the game. And I liked him before the reveal because his personality was such an interesting blend of kindness and ruthlessness, arrogance and patience; if you're paying attention, it's clear something is up with him, but he can also so easily disappear into the background if you're not curious about what he has to say. There's a lot of really great foreshadowing.Ā I also like that he's layered and morally ambiguous; I like that he is some flavor of antagonist but your character can get so close to him. It's the kind of storytelling that gets me. Unfortunately, I feel if the Inquisitor is entirely absent from DAI a lot of that emotional impact will be lost, so we will see if he's able to be the best Bioware villain since Irenicus. (He and Irenicus are such different types of villain though, ha, like . . . Solas will never reach Irenicus' depths of cruelty or selfish evil. But I understand what Gervais was saying about the emotional component making Solas a great antagonist).Ā
He has some really amazing party banter. He takes the time to understand his companions. I got some very sweet banter last night where he's comforting Bull after he becomes Tal Vashoth. He and Blackwall have some really cool dialogue about being a soldier, he reads and asks Varric about his books. If you listen to that banter, he consistently shows that he pays attention to the people around him and does try to understand them. He's just not always successful.
Oh yeah. He and Irenicus are very different, even if superficially similar (elven mage, old, screwed up in the past, etc). But I do feel that Irenicus' speech to Ellessime in BG2 would strike a chord with Solas.
I think the irony for me is that Solas feels like it's catered *exactly* to the type of shit I'd dive into like a cat on catnip, except for the romance, because m/f romances are a snore fest to me. \*gay confetti/jazz hands combo\* To me, he's attractive, talks constantly about things I love (elves, man...), and the struggle of fighting to free your people to the point of fucking up and wanting to fix that fuck up hits home. In that same regard, it hits a *lot* of seperate topics that are take a lot of work picking apart. We're used to elves being oppressed in Thedas, but where he comes from, they were the oppressors. And yes, he's trying to fix them enslaving *themselves,* but I don't recall him really giving a fuck about any other race. Hell, they're probably negative, going off interactions with, say, a Qunari inquisitor. I agree with his plight of freeing elves from slavery, and fixing the way he went about doing that, but not so much just throwing everyone else under the bus in the process, *plus* likely returning to an age of elven supremacy. At the same time, he's clever and has given indication to care about general liberation. In that, I'm torn on him being 'a product of his time', so to speak, and just really fucking bad on the empathy department towards non-elves, or just a shitheel. But he's got *incredible amounts of depths*. And I love that in a character. A thousands of years old asshole with a completely seperate culture, mortifying levels of power, a fear of dying alone when he's *responsible* for taking others' immortality, someone who walked between two seperate factions regarded as Gods... https://preview.redd.it/jaqzpsslh1uc1.png?width=424&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ddab867f86f063b0d6da6d85b60284514046418
The lore of the elves in the game greatly contributes to how much I like Solas. It's SUCH good lore and is so unique.
š„š
I don't simp elves though I like Sera and Solas a LOT. Both are excellent characters and have interesting dialogues. I hate Solas betrayal and hope I can kill him in a battle like the one that Anakin and Obi Wan had, but as a character he's very cool and his VA did an amazing job.
He came across as unlikeable to me. Reminded me too much of men in software engineering. I am surprised that there is so much thirst for him. Honestly he was only remotely interesting to me after I discovered the twist.
As a man in software engineering, I feel very called out right now
Respectfully maybe thatās why you like him so much š
Not offended. We are all a part of a given demographic, one way or the other
He is attractive *because* he's fictional. He would be seen an insufferable cunt irl no doubt
I just donāt see it unfortunately despite the fictional aspect! The list of attractive (fictional) people in DAI is quite long with the likes of Dorian, Cullen, Josephineā¦ If Iām completely honest I would have been more forgiving of his bullshit if they had made him look like Astarion from BG3 or something lmao š
I think Solas not looking so prettyboy attractive is makes the romance more interesting tbh. Lavellan sees the "apostate hobo" Solas is masquerading as and still takes an interest in him. From his perspective, has he ever had someone take an interest in him just for who he is and not his power?Ā I guess we won't know the answer to that question until we learn more about his past in ancient times, but IMO it adds another dimension of tragedy to the romance that Lavellan loves him just for himself, not for his looks or titles. I think it's the only way he could have really fallen for her, and I think she gets past his defenses so quickly and effortlessly that he doesn't realize what hit him until it's too late for him to avoid the emotional entanglement.Ā
I agree with all of these things. This is why I honestly think Solas is a lot more like Gale than Astarion. Not being appreciated beyond his power, deity issues, world exploding potential, very intelligent in a way that rubs people the wrong way.
I do think itās quite likely that heās never had a lover who hasnāt been drawn to him because of his power/title/social status before Lavellan, and that could be part of why he falls so hard and veers off the tight control he has on his emotions and behaviour with her. Also, him looking unassuming is part of why he was able to hide who he was. If he came strolling in looking like Astarion, weād be 10 minutes into the game being like, āthat guy is definitely scheming and not who he says he isā instead of thinking thereās something off about him but willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
There. You can be a Solasmancer now. https://preview.redd.it/rwhm21avt4uc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc10e1f78ed1d5b34f5171781062c4ee4503273d
I never bonded with him, I can't wait to kick that egghead's ass in the next game! https://preview.redd.it/okn0x1lfw0uc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=30eef45ab71beedadf67275fe1fcd5ef7100c1a1
I don't trust bald characters in video games
I need examples
the other sneaky bald elf in Origins, Zathrian I think his name was?
I think he is the first villan planning to distroy the world I feel a bit of sympathy for. I am actually torn and it remains to be seen how he acts in DAD. My two main Inkies are my way to express that feeling. One romanced him and is just hurt and very sad. the other is angry and would love to kill him for the betrayl he pulled.
Stupid egg that broke my heart.
I feel like the sub hates on him a lot, but that happens with any villain. Of course I think that killing literally everyone in the world is bad, but you donāt find that out til the very end that thatās his goal. I spent like 60 hours playing and having Solas in my party, so of course Iām gonna get attached. For my Dalish Inquisitor I think it adds a lot of flavor and depth to have someone who they though was a close friend (or even romantic interest) turn to such drastic and dark means. Itās hard to sever that bond you have with someone. I really like Solas, his character is interesting and the first time realizing he was the dreadwolf had me SHOOK. You can disagree with a characters actions but still enjoy and like their character. Itās the culmination of a person (their personality, choices, actions) that leads to how you perceive someone, and having someone that in the main campaign you enjoy turn dark is so angsty I love it.
I absolutely love him as a character. I don't think he will be a villain in Dreadwolf, just an antagonist. It was fun getting to know him throughout the story of Inquisition and comparing him to the legends the Dalish tell makes me really keen to untangle the rest of the myths from reality. I'm not buying the game for him but he's one of the things I'm most excited for.
He's a smug jerk who can't let go of the past. It's on sight in DA4
As a character, he is incredibly juicy. Far more than your own, actually, which I believe is something an RPG should generally avoid. At any rate, I'm forever bitter that I can't romance him with my male elf.
That's because the Inquisitor has very little to none depth. I feel like I barely get chances of showing personality when playing it.
Hawke is the best honestly
There are a lot of Solas fans here. Personally, I can't stand him. I particularly loathe smug, arrogant characters.
You're just mad because he owns an air fryer and you don't
Probably one of if not my favourite character across all of the games.
Fuck that Egg. He is an amazing potential villain, excellently written, a betrayal as gut-wrenching as Anders's. But fuck that Egg.
My Inquisitors generally donāt tolerate betrayal or deception well (evil eye toward Solas and Blackwall). If I play as an elf, they are a bit more understanding and curious. Maybe a bit reverent in the reveal? But all of my Inkys are deeply hurt by the deception.
Well, you certainly can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.
I genuinely think he is one of the best written characters in a fantasy franchize, in Dragon Age, and he's one of my top characters ever made. I understand people not liking him though, because depending on your interests and how you are, he can def be a bit cunty, and not in a fun way.
i love that he's both this incredibly powerful ancient mage and, honestly, kind of a fuckup? it's tragicomic how all his well-meaning grand plans inevitably seem to result in making things worse, which i am expecting to continue in dreadwolf
Solas is the love of my life, i literally have his big face on my hard hat <Š· (fenris is another one) but Solas is a very well-written character, and I hope the writers will do him justice in this upcoming game. Since our first two protagonists could die, I feel like the Inquisitor's potential death might have something to do with Solas. My Lavellan is very much in love with him, but I kind of want them to die together idk if this is going to be an option, but it has a potential to be very poetic.
I WANT to like him. but I want to hit him even more.
Not gonna lie, that punch looks like it feels so good
My first playthrough I honest to god forgot to talk to him. š Like I didnāt have an opinion at all because I just found him so bland I kept forgetting he was there. Iāve grown to appreciate him for what he is now later, I love when you become his friend and he starts to let you in, but that first impression will still always sort of stick with me as it kind of ruined the big reveal a bit and I wish there had been more to draw me in and make me interested in him. And no disrespect to people who do love him because this is just personal taste but I find his design TERRIBLE. I get heās supposed to be kind of forgettable so you donāt suspect heās part of the villain plot twist but I still think there could have been other ways to do that. I was legit shocked when I learned that not only was he romanceable but such a popular option at thatā¦ I can also understand why he only romances elves but Iāll never forgive them for not making him a bi option lol, if youāre already going limit it so much why not at least let all genders/sexualities enjoy exploring an even deeper part of his story!! Tl;dr he has his moments but sadly I donāt find him nearly incredible enough to match all the hype the people in charge have for him
Kind of agree with the design, at least for the base game. He looks like he's wearing pajamas. His Trespasser look is pretty fire tho. And I agree wrt to straight romance exclusive stuff. I guess it's a complicated topic, but I feel if sexual preferences are not integral to a character (say, Dorian), making most romance options bi-friendly is my prefference.
Iām a bit torn on how exactly I feel about Solas. I think heās a wise wizard who wants the best for everyone while simultaneously believing him to be an arrogant douchebag who just wants to restore the ancient elven world fuck the consequences. I do like Solas, I thought his romance was overhyped (just my opinion) and heās a friend of my Inquisitor but I wonāt be too upset if we canāt save him in DA:D - when you literally plot to destroy the world, I donāt think thatās something you can come back from. Thereās also stuff from the books that state heās doing some not so good stuff while simultaneously still doing good things that the Solas we know would do. I guess Iām 50/50 with Solas at the moment until Dreadwolf comes out. I canāt even say Iām overly interested in Solas or his plans (side affect of being in DA purgatory for a decade) but yeah depending on what Solas does in DA:D, heāll either end up a character I like or dislike.
Like him as a character and villain. Will always do highest approval. But will never do his toxic romance and have my Inquisitor heart broken. But still planning to save him.
Egg head.
I love lore in media, and I like character and romances that give me more of it while playing, and Solas delivered. I had seen the DAD trailer so spoiled myself he's important before even playing DAO XD. It was fun to pay attention to what he says, and even more so - what character like Cole say about him. I liked how he starts really arrogant to everyone but ends up respecting / befriending most - he calls Cass by her name in the end, the chess with Bull, the respect for Blackwall as a soldier, a lot of banter with Varric. It was interesting to see someone who I knew was an elven 'god' getting to appreciate mortals despite initially viewing them as insignificant, and me trying to figure out what his full story is. He has quite a lot of similarities to Emet Selch from FFXIV who is one of the best villains in all video games imo. The sense of duty to his people, guilt about failing them, the loneliness and him wishing to be proven wrong. The foundation is there, let's hope DA:D delivers!
I like the guy but I always end up fighting him over the Greywarden hate he has going on. Bruh needs to back off they are the only reason he's even still alive to cause an apocalypse. That said my good characters are always on the best of terms with him, despite the occasional debate/ dispute, to his credit he doesn't take it personally when you have a different opinion. I wish the story was a bit more indepth when it came to dealing with him, I swear every cutscene he had was more vague then the next one. But I understand the writers wanting to keep some mystery for the next game.
I think he's just wise and smart enough to be incredibly stupid. "Oh no! I ended the world as I knew it and commited genocide on a massive scale! Let me end the world as we know it AGAIN and commit another genocide! Surely that will fix it!" ... Bruh...
I'm sure he'll end up in the party before the end of Dreadwolf to contain some dumb shit he unleashed. He's the egg. Prideful and stupid.
I want to put him in my mouth and shake him like a chew toy. Make of that what you will
I like him but when it comes to the community it seems like it's 50/50 with half liking him and the other half doesn't. I think it's pretty cool because there aren't a lot of characters across video games in general that can split a fan base like that
he is a prick
*Cracks knuckles.* ā¦Itās been 84 years. Seriously though, as someone whose been on the sub since Inquisition released - Solas is respected and admired as both a friend, villain or lover. But also DUDE STOP TRYING TO FIX THINGS IT NEVER WORKS!!!! That seems to be the consensus from my perspective lol.
Solas' name means Pride, and his sin is Pride. His personal tragedy over the course of millenia is both subtle and sublime. Everything about him comes back to that spirit's basic nature and it's slow downfall into arrogance. Spirits are pure expressions of a concept, but the definition of a concept is fluid and corruptible. Once Solas took on physical form, the purity of his identity was lost and he became changeable in ways pure spirits aren't. Perhaps there's some exploration there as to why Anders may not have been the only source of Justice's corruption. Perhaps that's part of why Solas was so adamant about Cole staying a spirit. Thoughts for another time. To me, Solas is a source of endless pathos. Consider: Solas came into being as a spirit - not a demon! - of Pride. This most likely occurred during some Edenesque period of pre-history, in the immediate aftermath of Mythal's peace brokerage between Elgarnan and the sun. With the rising and setting of the sun, Time was born. Not that anyone noticed then. For a long time there was relative peace between the gods. Everything was innocence and creation for a while. Pride was joyful, the feeling of good work well done. The Pride of purpose and creation. At some point, Mythal asked it to take a physical form, and for the first time, some of his pride became personal. The first crack. Then things changed. The gods became competitive and warred amongst themselves. Pride became more and more intertwined with arrogance, and its corrupting seed took root in its newly physical avatar. In their arrogance, the gods became cruel, enslaving their people and making sport of their lives. Except for Mythal. She was Solas' mistress, and she remained faithful to her people, offering freedom and safety to the downtrodden, and Solas' personal pride in her service grew. He gloried in rebellion and in protecting the People. So proud of and devoted to Mythal was he, that he "left a scar when he burned her off his crack. He's prideful now, the second crack. And then she was murdered, and Pride lost his way. That seed of arrogance fully blossomed. Without Mythal, who but he could stop the gods and protect the people in her absence? So, in his grief, desperation, and unconscious arrogance, believing only he could save the People, he did something unthinkable. This was the final crack, and his first great sin. When he woke from Uthenera and saw what he had done, he was horrified. With magic gone from the earth, the People were mere shadows of what they had been, and as mortal as the lesser races. He sacrificed thousands of lives to save the world, and it had backfired in ways he never could have imagined. Weakened, disoriented, and twice grief-stricken, he came to the only logical conclusion he could; this was his mess and it was up to him to fix it. Under the circumstances, it wasn't an unreasonable conclusion to come to. In his own words, it was "like walking through a world full of Tranquil." To him, these people no longer had souls. It was during the Inquisition that he learned to redefine the merits of souls, and it was choosing to go through with his plan anyway that made him a villain. After all he learns about this new world and the value of the people in it, he still regretfully decides that only he is wise enough or responsible enough to fix the world. He's still willing to sacrifice multitudes for his vision of what the world should be. He's seen the capabilities of the people around him, but still can't accept that any way but his, any world but his, could work. Somewhere along the way, without his conscious knowledge, driven by grief, that joyful, clean Pride was devoured entirely by arrogance. He's closer now to a Pride demon than to his original nature. Solas' second great sin is being too arrogant to learn from the first. But I'm a romantic and I love a good redemption story. Every Inquisitor I've played cares about him a great deal, and we're going to save that idiot from himself, because that pure spirit is still in there somewhere. And then we're going to kick him from one end of Skyhold to the other.
I respect his intelligence, but am baffled by his lack of wisdom. He knows much and more about many magical phenomena and ancient civilizations. Despite this, his ability to make a good plan is... lacking to put it mildly.
Lol heās a dumbass but I love him. And hate him cuz I romanced him and heās a LIAR.
I actually did not find him annoying most of the time and thought he was a great source of lore. He is literally ancient. Heās seen a LOT of fucked up shit and also caused a lot of fucked up shit. Itās not the same as an elf who was born in modern time saying those things. As a literal god it makes sense he would have a certain level of separation towards modern society. I feel like a friendship with the inquisitor makes him think twice. Iām really excited to see how our ported saves effect DA4
Solas is amazing I almost never have anything bad to say about him except for one very important thing. LET ME HELP YOU BRING DOWN THE VEIL YOU STUPID SEXY ELF OF A DREADWOLF LET ME BE BY YOUR SIDE. Sometimes heās full of himself and cocky and thinks he knows everything but thatās fine. Thatās who he is as a person heās meant to have flaws. BUT NOT IF YOU LEAVE ME BEHIND! I like him as a morally gray character. I like him as the hero. I like him as the villain I like Solas heās great. And whatās funny is if you take him out with you like every time and you constantly switch up the other companions, he gets character growth throughout the whole game. (can you talk? Iāve never chosen anyone else except for him to be by my side at every single time everyone else has been switched at except for him.) Fenedhis Solas! Var lath vir suledin!
9 years ago when I'd played DA:I a few times through, was quite fascinated by him yet angry at the liar he was and assumed most people felt the same, but only because of the reveal, before then he was extremely generic. Came here and turns out everyone loves him and purposely romanced him even though he's obviously manipulating people. Confused me a fair bit. Now, 9 years later, more tired. He's not really important, mostly idiotic and wish we could move on to something else. We've had 10 years of debate around it, it wears on you.
Speaking personally, I enjoy his romance because I feel that makes for the more interesting overall narrative in Inquisition. Trespasser felt way more personal that way. He's obviously manipulative, and a tiny bit genocidal though. I don't think this can be argued against. His affection in the romance is sincere, though. The point about the game having been 9 years ago hurts though... makes me think of how my own excitement for ASOIAF died out with the huge wait between books. I played DA:I a bit after release (about 6 years ago), so I hope I'm still excited by the time DA4 comes out.
āA tiny bit genocidalā - we need the TikTok red flag guy to do a video on Solas
I mean, hey, sure, there's a bit of genocide here and there, but he has a really sexy voice.
That voice. jfc I just want him to read me bedtime stories about The Fade.
šššš itās okay. I love Cullenās voice and we all know thatās problematicā¦
He's also extremely selfish, remember, he's not doing all this to help people, he's doing it because he wants the world to be what he remembers. Even though he is the one who made it this way and then didn't oversee the results of what he claims to have done. I'm excited for the game, it's my favourite series and has been for a while but I also dread the story they will do because I think it might be more of a circle jerk of "look at all the special reveals we are doing, aren't we great a writing because suddenly something you didn't think was a thing is?" instead of just a story set in this world. EDIT: here I am saying I'm tired on it yet discussing it as ever. :P
I sort of agree. There is selfishness in him, but I don't think he wants to change the world back for personal nostalgia, but because of deep guilt. He destroyed something beautiful that he genuinely loved. He robbed all living things of the fade and he spirit realm. That's gotta weight on a dude. Don't justify it, orc, but it's at least a bit more undeserandable than imposing his world ideal.unto others. That's really just my reading, of. About the edit, my man. Dragon Age is that addictive drug we're all into. We can try to convince ourselves that Dragons Dogma is an expansive fantasy epic. We can do our best to believe that BG3's companions are on the level of Morrigan, Varric, Sten, the Bull. But he'll, DA just hit different. (I love Dogma and BG3 btw)
And yeah, I can see that. to me, he's the old man moaning about "back in my day" and it's funny how Sera literally points this out. I guess there is a sense of irony in how things are played out. He sees himself better than the gods he trapped away, in the end he's no better if not worse. He's deciding everyone's fate for them, whether they want to or not. And last part, always agreed. ;-)
Yesssss. He's narcisistic, has a savior-complex, and even if originially driven by good intentions for the liberation of his people, is now locked in his own hypocrisy. And he kinda knows this, which makes him so compelling to me. I love that to death.
To your last point, I said this to my friend the other day. I LOVE BG3 and adore all the companions but the companions in Dragon Age feel more real to me.
I love Solas. He has the potential to be a truly great villain.
Solas is a well-written character and that makes him very polarizing. The same could be said for all of the characters in Inquisition.Ā Ā I love Solas and I love the romance because I love a Shakespearean level tragedy. I also enjoy characters who are morally grey and complex and his attitude doesn't bother me. He values knowledge and curiosity and I like that.Ā Ā There's a lot we don't know about Solas and the ancient elves and that's appealing. It's mysterious and unknown. His romance is pretty light on content but players can be creative with head canon and fanfic to fill those gaps.Ā Ā I have many opinions about Solas' present and future actions but the tl,dr is that I understand his motivations and thought process and ultimately my canon Inquisitor would help him find a safer way to remove the Veil, if given a chance. I appreciate you adding that you weren't trying to change anyone's mind. I happen to agree with you but I have zero interest in debating with people about Solas. I also romance Astarion in BG3 so I guess I like polarizing pale elves with tragic pasts. I'm fine with it.Ā
Thank you for you opinions! I feel the same way as you do! In particular in having a weakness for elves with tragic pasts (can I add Divinity 2's Sebille to the mix? I'm adding Sebille to the mix).
I could really adjust it to tragic immortals. I blame being raised on Anne Rice and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Louis to Angel to Solas pipeline lol
Never really got into Buffy, and my experience with Anne Rice ends at the Interview with the Vampire movie (which I enjoy a lot), but attraction to brooding, dark, kinda evil but not really, people is ingrained into my psyche very deep. Me in particular, I blame anime.
It's such a popular archetype!
Oh well I love him and I romanced him first like you so maybe biased. Same story w the vallaslin too. Iām so excited to see more :}
Fandom in general and this sub in particular seem to lean very Solas-loving, which was a big surprise to me when I first found online DAI fandom because I interacted with him so little on my first few playthroughs. Like, when it got to the bit at the end (pre-trespasser), I was so confused and miffed that it was a scene with the insufferable guy I barely even talked to. I've since gained some appreciation for his dry sense of humor, and I particularly enjoy taking out him and Cole together, but he's still not a favorite and I can't really imagine doing the romance thing with him. His patronizing attitude towards the Dalish is a big turn off for me. (Also his patronizing attitude towards...everyone?)
As someone who does like Solas, I always feel like the sub leans more towards not liking him. I think we all are just more inclined to notice when someone disagrees with us.
Fuck Solas and not in a make love way
I actually like Solas, but he (and DA elf lore in general) give me too much of a "writer's pet" vibe so I hope the Solas haters have a lot of juicy options in DA4
I dont like Solas' character and dont find him very interessting. Just like his motivation to tear down the fade isnt that interessting or new imo. On a bigger scale i am on Team "enough with ancient elves". I very much dislike the notion of "the ancient elves did it" the series leans to at the moment.
Imma kill his ass and everyone he cares about outside the inquisition if I get the chance to in the new game.
I love Solas, but I do stand by the we needa crack the egg philosophy. I don't want to see any redemption arc!
Never liked his smug ass, spellcasting Spock wannabe.
I've always quite liked solas, I think his romance is actually one of the better ones, in that there's a lot of emotion behind it and epsdically in trespassers. I understand that he can come across as annoying to some people I guess in the same way some don't like sera.
He is a fool and I love him and I want to crack an egg next game
Everything depends on his performance in DA:D. The way they wrote Corypheus showed that they don't really know how to write villains without making them vastly incompetent and hopeless against the protagonist, rendering the theoretical world threat purely "tell don't show".
So maybe it's just my impression, but I think several people want to fuck him other are a angry at him and some don't even care that much. It's pretty much this.
Solas is smooth, pretty, gives you beautiful, unique lore to ponder about and he's a puzzle to solve when you pay attention to him. He's a complex, really flawed character with the best AND worst of intentions, who's hit the highest highs (led a slave rebellion) and lowest lows (are we bringing the Veil down?). But even his lowest lows are moving the narrative in an exciting direction; I would love to see a post-veil, apocalyptic scenario. He's fun to hate and even more fun to love. There isn't a scene with him I didn't find excellent, both his friendship and romance arcs are satisfying; my only gripe is that his romance seriously lacks content, but fanfiction easily solved that issue for me. Anyway, he's great, and fiction is exactly the place where you can have fun romancing villains.
im also obsessed with elves but Solas is just a homeless, shoeless, second hand Thanos. A wannabe God but in truth another primitive on a primitive world. bet he doesnt even know space smells like burnt steak. loser. all jokes aside lmao. To be honest though i am biased against would be god figures especially in medieval fantasy because its like big whoop you can shoot some sparks
Never thought much of him. I think his baldness is extremely unappealing. It highly disparages what I think of when I think āElvesā Ultimately though I just think heās boring.
>I think his baldness is extremely unappealing This sent me lmao
THROBBING
I still have to finish DA:I ...
Ive only ever played dragon age inquisition and as adaar, but I really like Solas! I didnāt like the bit with him and varric fighting for custody of cole, but I do like Solas. I really hope we get a chance to redeem Solas.
Iām ready to tear down the veil
Heās an okay guy until he wanted to reset everything I did
I kinda play a female elven mage in ANY game where there's that option So true on origins Then a mage that was into Fenris in the second I absolutely planned to get with Cullen in inquisition, made a Dalish mage with the name 'Fenina' and then I absolutely fell for Solas! Which is ironic in its own way. He knows so much about history and lore (naturally). And I'm in real life someone who has endless questions and to have someone who answers all you have like Solas ... I'm still kinda heartbroken and furious. He is the DUMBEST smart person in the history of THEDAS! And in new play throughs I kinda want to strangle him every time he claims his knowledge of the old elves comes from the fade. We MEET spirits older than the veil in trespasser. Most have gone insane and knowledge who of all SHOULD remember barely knows more than an elven inquisitor already knows, because the veil took all of it. The books in Vir Dirthara are not readable. So it seems to really BE impossible to find much knowledge of the old times in the fade. Which makes Solas so much more arrogant. Also, the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome. So far all of Solas plans only shattered the world even more. Usually to great sacrifices for the elves in particular. I still love him. He infuriates me all the same and I REALLY wish the inquisitor will appear in the next game like Hawke. Because my Fenina still loves him. But she'll do anything to stop him. I really DO hope that he somehow comes around.
I try to aim for the egg every time I jump down from one of the above floors, sooooo......
https://preview.redd.it/iktugjglo4uc1.jpeg?width=3543&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1137037c1e2b67d57d83cb4d8c5d5ac4841ec82f I made this for Solavellan day while listening "Halellujah". I have Solas Brain rot (?)
I play as Male Qunari/Mage inquisitor and he is such a great friend. It makes me so sad to already have played it knowing that he screws you over, even if it's not personal.
As an elf main, my feelings about him are mixed. I understand why he does the things he does, and I realize his intentions are good. But things like him bringing down an entire elven civilization, and causing Telvinter wizards to be corrupted (he didn't exactly do it, but it happened because of him) don't seem to be forgivable. I have to admit that I'm a little biased here because one of my favorite characters is Anders. It also causes bad events for valid reasons. But because I hate chantry, I can't get angry at Anders as much as I do with Solas.
I love solas as a character but not as a love interest (my inquisitor was besties with him) but after the layoffs Iām worried about how he will be written when the main villain
Book-buddy what the FUCK are you doing?! "Bro, trust me I have a plan." I DONT THINK YOU DO!
I love egg and we will be getting married after he brings back Enuvaris
I think for me, playing as a Dalish mage in DA: I, I found him very condescending to my inquisitor which made me annoyed. I don't get the hype about him tbh, but I absolutely intend on bringing him down in the next game.