hand in unnuggable hand

I saw these hilarious posts which inspired me to share my own headcanon around this.

So I don't think removing the Anchor was possible before Trespasser because I don't think Solas knew how to. There's no evidence that he did.

In the *On Rifts and Rituals codex (which he writes sometime in the years after Trespasser), Solas is still mystified by the Anchor and studying it: "It may also yield the final elements that have eluded me." Everything about the Anchor bonding to the Inquisitor shouldn't have been possible in the first place. Corypheus couldn't remove it - "The Anchor is permanent. You have spoiled it with your stumbling" and neither could Solas at that time. Because I think Inky changed the Anchor. That spoiling line certainly makes it sound like it.

So I think the two years between DAI and Trespasser were spent searching for a way to separate the Anchor from Inky without killing them (amongst other activities of his). I don't believe Solas wanted the Inquisitor dead. If he did, they would be dead. I imagine him returning to the Lighthouse, consulting spirits, researching, doing experiments and trying to understand how to unweave the Anchor from their body.

Eventually he discovers a way to separate it, all while the Qunari situation is gaining speed. That's how I line up the timing of Trespasser.

As for why he removes the Anchor and leaves them there... yeah. Lol.

Solas is a strategist so he's going to look for solutions that accomplish several objectives at once. By the time he knows how to remove the Anchor without killing Inky, the Qunari threat has escalated, he needs the Inquisition involved, he needs to reach Inky, AND he still wants to tell Inky who he really is. Once Solas sees several paths converging, he's very good at positioning himself to benefit from all of them. The downside is that when he's focused on the larger pattern, he can lose sight of the more personal human cost - and he's a weird spirit alien man who isn't always good at the human side of things. He's also very good at compartmentalizing, which allows him to approach the Inquisitor as a problem that needs solving.

However, through a romance/friend lens, seeing that person he cares for/loves standing in front of him in pain is an entirely different matter. Suddenly he can't be as distant or clinical.

For me, every moment spent with a romanced Lavellan makes it harder for him to leave. Staying carries its own risks as well. If he returns Inky to the others himself, he's suddenly back among the people he spent two years avoiding. There would be questions, arguments, appeals to stay even, and before long he'd be pulled back into relationships and entanglements.

And ultimately, he's not a monster (fanfic preferences are one thing but I'm going on game context, text and dialogue). Whatever magic he applied, we see no blood in Trespasser. The arm is still engulfed in bright green magic, almost like a cocoon wrapped around it. Solas could have killed the Inquisitor there, but he didn't. Their death would've caused **unnecessary chaos, and he genuinely wanted the people of Thedas to experience relative calm before Veilfall. Narratively, it makes more sense to me that he'd ensure their survival until the others could reach them, opening the eluvians after he passed through his so the group could get to Inky.

I mean, it's still cruel - but that's the fun part to reconcile in a Solavellan world - I love how messy it is. 😂

I'd love to know how others reconcile this.

* I don't subscribe to the idea that Solas literally has the Inquisitor's arm. In Trespasser, Inky still has their arm when Solas leaves, and the grammar of the codex points to a remnant of the Anchor being studied alongside a sketch of the arm. I believe the Anchor was a physical magical glyph of sorts that had woven itself into the Inquisitor and could only be wielded by them. Otherwise, Corypheus could've just cut off Inky's arm and used it himself.

“I used what I had learned from your arm,” he said abruptly, stepping out of the water. She handed him his breeches, and he performed a simple spell to remove the water. “Its destruction was the key to understanding how to unravel the Blight from the dagger.”

“Okay…” she said slowly as he pulled them on. “That’s not actually very helpful. What was the mark, exactly, then? A piece of the Fade? A piece of the Veil?”

The true answer was somewhat more complex; the Orb had interacted with her unexpectedly to form something unique in many ways, but her guess was, if not the full entirety of the truth, a useful summation. He nodded.

“So,” she reasoned, “removing the Anchor was unraveling the Fade from my physical body. Isolating it? And I’m part of the Fade, sort of, like the Blight is part of the Titans. Only without the nightmares. I mean that if the Anchor was made of raw Fade, the raw material of dreams, that the elves are the descendants of spirits, who were made of the Fade. But my arm was the infection, in this case. The Blight on the Anchor.”

“I did not remove your arm to preserve the Anchor!” he snapped.

“Well, you couldn’t, could you,” she said reasonably as they walked back toward the rotunda. “It was too tangled, and you hadn’t learned how to tease it apart yet, so you had to get rid of the Anchor, and the arm was too tied into it so it just flaked off into the Fade.”

The possibility to romance Neve is not immediately cut off if you choose to sacrifice Minrathous. However, you still need to make certain choices in your interactions with Neve in order not to lock yourself out of a possible romance.

Those choices include:

Bringing Neve with you to Solas's ritual

Supporting Neve in choosing the careful approach towards looking for the gods during the first conversation in the Lighthouse (dialogue option: Neve is right)

Completing the Study of Dock Town

Encouraging Neve to accept the Threads blackmail at the end of the Cobbled Swan Case (Neve will accept the blackmail either way on the Treviso path, but will disapprove if Rook tries to dissuade her from the deal)

Each choice grants you 1 point in the "Rook Backs Neve" counter.

If you get two or more points, Neve will note that Rook has shown up for her multiple times before and the romance will be available:

Rook: I want to be someone who shows up for you. Rook: I don't want to lose… I worry I've lost something. Neve: Rook, you turning up today… it's not the first time. Neve: Maybe you're not that lost. More likely we both are. Rook: How do we get found? Neve: Maybe we'll figure it out.

If you only have one point, Neve will say that they hardly see eye to eye, but Rook will insist they want to get to know her better (and the romance will also remain available):

Rook: I don't want to lose… I worry I've lost something. Neve: How much could you lose? We barely see eye-to-eye. Rook: I won't pretend to know you. But I want to. After everything, I don't know if you'll let me… Neve: But maybe we'll see.

However, if you scored zero points, the romance will be cut off:

Rook: I don't want to lose… I worry I've lost something. Neve: Likely nothing good for you. Neve: You don't know me, Rook. We barely see eye-to-eye. Neve: But we're together in a fight against the gods. You need a friend, you know where to find me.

Thank you to @rooks-dagger, @mushrooms-x-moss, @rookamell, and @xkatchy for the tags! Ended up mostly just doing a single text message thread, but may have gotten carried away with it - especially after spending the weekend mulling over thoughts about Harding and her willingness to get her hands dirty with Tevinter politics post-canon.

Tfw you're the first ever elven Magister, and everyone thinks your tiny dwarf wife is oh so cute and innocent, either because they forget or don't know she was the personal protegée of one of the most terrifying spymasters in Thedas.

Gentle tags under the cut! The text generator I used is over here.

Thanks for the tag, @redaresss (x) and @mushrooms-x-moss (x)! This was a fun one 💜

Fake text generators can be found HERE or HERE

Nevember ❄️⚔️

These two are such troublemakers together, and their texting is no different! Here are 5 conversations you'd find on Neve & Ember's phones at any given time...📲👀

1. That time Neve got lost in the catacombs

Neve and Ember have a buddy system, okay? You gotta check-in regularly with your daring detective and/or rogue girlfriend 🙂‍↕️

The text below applies only to playthroughs where Rook saves Minrathous, as you never get to investigate the Cobbled Swan in the Treviso path.

In the finished game, Neve is permanently locked into the party at the beginning of The Cobbled Swan Case quest. All waypoints are disabled for its duration, and Rook cannot change their party or travel to other locations until it's complete.

However, the game still features multiple banters accounting for Neve's absence that you can hear if you remove Neve from your party using the DAV Save Editor. For example, the upper level of the Cobbled Swan is locked if you try to enter it without Neve, and Rana and the tavern owner will say that they'll only let you up if you bring Neve with you (even if you still can hear her voice as if she were with you).