I don’t mean to sound rude (actually, I do) but how lacking in self-awareness as a writer and a creative team do you need to be to think that the way trespasser ended was the PERFECT introduction for a new protagonist not even remotely tied to the narrative at all?

The Inquisitor literally says “ILL HAVE TO STOP YOU”

The Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste

The Inquisitor, Survivor of the Breach, Herald of Change, Hero of the South

You know the Inquisitor - do you remember them, BioWare???

Not only that but THEY TOOK THE INQUISITOR’S HAND

They set it up so perfectly - because what better way to narratively justify the protagonist having to relearn everything than that??

I mean, yes, I get writing an RPG is different and difficult in a way I probably couldn’t even begin to understand

Look, I think Veilguard IS a great game! I love it! But, like every other DA game before it, it leapfrogs right over some established lore to tell a different story, and the story it ultimately told was not about quite the same Solas many of us loved in Inquisition and Trespasser, and the difference is significant.

Do you ever think about the fact that there's not a single abomination in the whole game? Doesn't happen. Not even to Venatori. No, Lucanis does not count. He genuinely is not actually an abomination. It's just that most of the cultures of Thedas don't have any other term for spirit possession. I just think it's interesting that in the game where your whole and unquestioned job is to keep the Veil up, there's not a single example of this well established tragic consequence of the Veil.

Not a single living ancient elf. Solas had agents. There were unequivocally still ancient elves around. We see none. No one who could attest to what the world once was. No one who might dare agree with Solas. And what of the spirits who were waiting to help? Not a one in Solas's own crossroads? None. The spirits there are silent. They have no voice.

Is there a single mention of uthenera? I don't remember one. The unknown number of elves who might still live, cut off from their bodies. Don't worry about it! Don't you worry.

We roam the halls of Arlathan itself. Not a single veilfire rune with visions of a time before death, when magic was as easy as breathing. Not a glimpse into the world that existed before the Veil. Not a moment of wonder over what once was.

Bellara: I never get used to it. The ancient elven magic, I mean.

Emmrich: How so?

Bellara: It feels weird. Different. From other magic.

Emmrich: It is more powerful than most of what we're used to, certainly.

Bellara: Maybe. A little bit. But it's more than that. It feels almost cold.

Emmrich: How interesting. Is it an external sensation?

Bellara: No, it's inside cold. Not outside cold.

Emmrich: I understand what you meant about old elven magic feeling "cold," Bellara.

Bellara: Really? I don't even know if I did.

Emmrich: The Mourn Watch pulls on very different magic for our rituals.

Emmrich: It's more... still than what you'd use to manipulate rock, or summon lightning.

Emmrich: It anticipates.

Bellara: I'm not sure I'd like that. Magic just... waiting for me.

Emmrich: Perhaps. But it lends a solid foundation to our work.

Bellara: Maybe "bracing" is the right word.

Emmrich: For what?

Bellara: The ancient elven magic. That we were talking about.

Bellara: Every time I use one of the artifacts... it wakes me up. Like a bucket of cold water. Only not cold.

Bellara: I wonder why that is?

Emmrich: All magic touches the Fade. Perhaps the old elves tapped something we've lost.

Bellara: What you said about ancient elven magic. The way it touches the Fade. I think you're right.

Emmrich: You've made a discovery?

Bellara: So, um. Don't be mad. But I went outside the bubble at the Lighthouse.

Emmrich: Bellara! That was rather foolhardy.

Bellara: I know! But I was safe. Mostly. Anyways, when I went out there. I could feel it. Somewhere. Like the elven magic.

Emmrich: Ancient elven magic draws from the Deep Fade? Fascinating. The amount of magic you could harness...

Bellara: Explains a lot. About how they did what they did.

What could Thedas look like without the Veil if we didn’t view it through a lens of fear?

But in short:

1. It is the natural state of the world, a bit like if we’d built a dome between us and the sun for millennia as an extremely imperfect and basic metaphor

2. Spirits are people who belong with flesh-based people; the veil’s existence harms them and also prevents them from strengthening society. Probably half the population of the world are spirits, maybe more, and the veil is unjust to them for its mere existence AND because when they get forced through it, it twists them against their nature in torturous pain and then flesh people kill them or they kill each other. No good for anyone.

3. It is a fallacy based on Chantry hysteria and the games being in themselves unreliable narrators for the predominant narrative they give us to believe that we’d be “drowning in demons” because

4. The Breach and the rifts and general tattered state of the veil is not indicative of what a world without the veil would look like. Those are closer to what would happen to fish in an ocean-sized sphere if you punched holes in it and they got violently wrenched through with the force of escaping water; if they didn’t get forced through something traumatic, they’re far, far less likely to be twisted against their purpose. A world without the veil is an ocean. They can just…swim.

5. We have a number of canonical, profound examples of symbiotic coexistence even with the veil in place (the Avvar especially but also Rivain, the Mourn Watch to an extent) where even with the veil causing a barrier to understanding, spirits and the people who respect and care for them can exist peacefully and successfully together

6. As evidenced by Dorian’s letter to the Divine in codex, it’s really only the Southern Chantry lands where abominations and possession are even an issue, in large part because they’re the absolute kings of self-fulfilling prophecy. They teach that magic is dangerous and that all spirits want us to possess you so naturally they get what they expect.

7. Even in the Southern Chantry, the first Inquisitor, Ameridan, had a “spirit companion” he speaks of casually, either a spirit that stayed with him or consensually possessed him in the way of young Avvar mages (not clear which) so even down south, it wasn’t always just AAAA DEMONS DEMONS BAD

8. The Frostback Basin, if you bring Solas and Cole, you learn that it is remarkable for having virtually NO veil. So threadbare Cole says he could “skate right across”. There are spirits everywhere, and they’re far more peaceable than the bloody human Jaws of Hakkon lmao. Also some fascinating evidence here that killing malign spirits like Hakkon himself allows them to reconfigure themselves into less twisted form when they’re reborn

9. We have plenty of evidence even with the veil that spirits like to help. The spirits of Compassion/Undying Hope we meet in VG despite the Venatori doing everything they can to make things worse. Solas mentions his host of spirits ready to help, and you’re free to believe him or not, but that has *always* been his MO. Spirits eager to reunite with the world in peace. They are fundamentally his people as much as the ancient elves are; I’ll trust what he says about spirits above what anyone else does.

10. The primary argument for me for the veil staying in place was the imprisoned Evanuris and the blight and now…they’re dead and the blight is less of a threat for not having their direction. Also better contained. People can find proactive solutions now instead of reactive ones.

11. Mages should be taught their magic is a gift and not a curse, how to work with spirits and not see every single one as a potential threat or an object to be exploited. It’s not something that could happen overnight but it’s far less likely to happen at all with the veil in place because I shudder to think of how the backlash of Veilguard is going to increase already unconscionable acts of genocide (annulment of mage circles by Templars we’ve had in every game but VG—though Rowan speaks of Dairsmuid—and purges on alienages and Dalish clans) against mages and elves so once more those who suffer the most will suffer more

12. Maybe if Solas’s original plan had gone forwards and he’d just torn down the veil with the orb and Corypheus had died as expected, everything would have been violent, terrible, and bloody. But that’s not Veilguard Solas, influenced by the Inquisition and his friends there whom he loved and taught him that there was life worth preserving in Thedas. So I truly believe that, with the mitigation he’d put in place that the writers didn’t see fit to like…share with the class beyond a few throwaway lines that it would not have been the nightmare Varric was screeching about. Minrathous at the beginning was probably the worst of it, because fish were getting wrenched backwards through holes, not just free to enter and exist and swim without violence. That would have ended when the veil was down, judging by everything we’ve seen evidence of. Now we will likely never know.

Anyway! I wrote out a whole thing I guess. I want it better organised and sourced than bullet points, but it’s something, at least. Hope it helps! Bottom line is there’s a lot we don’t know, but the only actual real canon example of a nearly veil-less world we have to go on is the Avvar and the Frostback Basin, and if that’s somewhere near what’s possible? I’m in.

Loss of life happens either way. I guess it just depend on whose lives matter to the one deciding. I personally think the end result of allowing the world to exist in its natural, veil-less state would ultimately be better for everyone.

A Text File of Everything Solas Says In Inquisition and Veilguard, The Ultimate Fanfic Resource For Writing Solas' Voice*

and I fell on the floor because it made me happy.