#lalorethoughts

When I talk about Lavellan’s solitude, I don’t mean she has no friendships or community. I mean solitude of the heart.

All Inquisitors have solitary aspects to them if you really break it down, however a Solas romanced Lavellan is different. She’s the only version of a romanced Inquisitor who doesn’t get closure of their romance in DAI. The image of her standing alone on her balcony at the end of the game and again at the end of Trespasser, while all other Inquisitors have the company of their chosen loves, is the first indication.

Firstly, to be the Inquisitor at all is to walk a path of isolation. The mark on their hand erases their former identity and remakes them into a figure of myth, whether they accept it or not. I have always viewed the Inquisitor as written very Frodo-esque and Galadriel tells Frodo that to be a ring bearer, is to be alone. To bear the mark for the Inquisitor, is to be alone. They become “Herald of Andraste,” “Inquisitor,” a vessel of destiny. Varric, who gives every companion a nickname, never does this for the Inquisitor. His Andrastian heart can't help but see the Inquisitor as touched by a higher power.

For Lavellan, this mythic isolation compounds her solitude of the heart. She isn’t only set apart by the mark, or by the destiny imposed upon her, but by her love. Where others see only betrayal and danger in Solas, she continues to see compassion and grief - and that makes her incomprehensible and alone.

In Trespasser, any Inquisitor can vow to save Solas from himself, and when they do, every companion disapproves - except Cole. That unanimity of rejection is such a reveal. I think it can reflect the companions’ personal anger at Solas’ betrayal, but I also think it represents their inability to understand how the Inquisitor could still have compassion for him after such deception. And this is where Cole’s approval becomes so helpful to our understanding.

In the version where Solas goes alone, the thanks is collective. He turns to the Inquisitor, Rook, and Morrigan and says, “Thanks to you, I now can see the way.” No one is named, and the camera shows all three. The tone feels ceremonial, with gratitude spread evenly across the group. Each of them played a role in the clarity Solas has reached, and each still belongs to the world he’s leaving behind. It’s a fitting nod to the Inquisition and Veilguard's influence on his arc, and the farewell keeps them all on equal footing as Solas turns to shoulder the burden alone.

The other version, where Lavellan chooses to join him, feels very different. Here we get “Thank you, Rook.” How apt that the more personal ending for Solas comes with a more personal thanks from Solas.

On one level, naming Rook prevents them from being overshadowed in their own story with too much emotional focus on Solas and Lavellan. With Lavellan stepping out of Thedas to join Solas, Rook becomes the sole protagonist left to lead and thus should be acknowledged in this ending. Gratitude here then can be interpreted as stewardship and the passing of responsibility: Rook will watch over Thedas now.

But the thanks is also personal. In naming Rook, Solas acknowledges the choice that gave him the chance to reunite with Lavellan - his heart - and to face the future with another. Set against the din’anshiral, which the narrative also shows Lavellan walking, the symbolism is even more deep. The path represents separation, solitude, and death: to walk it is to be cut off from your heart. Yet here, instead of losing their hearts, Solas and Lavellan find them again in each other. So what could have been a death-path becomes a path of new life in this sense. Solas’ gratitude to Rook is the recognition that Rook made this impossible inversion real.

What I love is how much this fits Solas’ character. He’s always drawn lines between love and responsibility. In the romanced Lavellan ending, it's like the writers keep that balance intact: Lavellan embodies the heart, Rook embodies duty, and neither role is diminished by being confused with the other. It’s a beautiful balance, and it highlights Rook as an intriguing protagonist to me - one who can turn the other cheek to the pain Solas caused them personally, and who leans into the collective wisdom of others when deciding how to engage him. That stands in contrast to Solas, who historically has always gone it alone.

Solas and Dorian’s conversations are among my favourite in DAI. Their dynamic is full of sharp edges, but over time, there’s mutual curiosity, reluctant respect, and eventually, to me at least, there feels a real connection.

Then in VG years later, we get this exchange:

Ashur: This Solas they keep talking about… you were friends? Dorian: I didn’t know he was an elven god at the time, and he didn’t look like someone out to destroy the world. His wardrobe choices, on the other hand, were a catastrophe all their own.

Ah Dorian, always deflecting with humour - BUT - he doesn’t deny the friendship. He could have said “we were allies” or “I tolerated him.” But he doesn’t. The wardrobe joke is familiar deflection to those of us players who played DAI endlessly, but it also softens the memory and covers up a small hurt. Dorian, at least, thought they were friends.

I love Solas so I talk about Solas - a lot.

I love the Inquisitor and particularly Inquisitor Lavellan.

The Evanuris fascinate me next to the Fade and spirits.

Inquisition is my favourite DA game with my favourite companions, so it gets the most attention.

I'm an unapologetic lover of Solas and Lavellan and their story. However, I do my best to be objective in my Solas studies (lol) and take my sollavellan hat off when required. I also do my best to back up a lot of my interpretations with game lore, canon and dialogue (cause as a solavellan you kind of have to, else wise some will go, 'oh that's just a solavellan with their headcanons' - c'est la vie.)

A remnant is a leftover. If the wolf statuettes in the Crossroads are regrets Solas deliberately seals away, too painful to face, then the 3 remnants in the prison are the pieces that have bled through because they are at the core of his pain.

Remnant of Parting

Mythal gave wisdom, yet to him she betrayed it by siding with the Evanuris. She represented protection for the people, yet he failed to protect her from her murder. What should be memories of love and trust have become reminders of disconnect and guilt.

The line “striding with the powers of hidden ways” describes the Mythal we know, moving through the world with secret knowledge and unseen strategies, shaping events quietly, even as Flemeth. Solas set her apart from the other Evanuris and admired her, but the phrase also points to secrecy that may have extended even to him. Those hidden ways became paths he couldn’t, or wouldn't follow (ascending to gods), and therefore divided them. And it's interesting this remnant describes a dragon aspect and not the companion spirit he once knew or even the woman. Dragons are majestic, distant, and fearsome but it also feels tied to their final parting when he slew Flemeth and took her power. The image of his unfinished fresco in Skyhold’s rotunda comes to mind - the dragon slain, the bond broken.

“Fingerprints mar the golden shine” - the “gold” shows Solas clinging to a pure, idealized memory of Mythal in my opinion. But the fingerprints suggest two things: he won’t face his own choices in their shared story, and he won’t see her flaws either, won't see how she herself treated him, how he treated her. His attempt to preserve a spotless memory only leaves marks of denial. That’s why, in an atonement ending, she reminds him it was never just him it - was both of them.

All of this is bound up in the word parting. It isn’t a single moment but the story of being severed again and again. He mourns the Fade, his spirit self, he mourns Mythal, honours her, resents her, condemns himself all at once and he mourns the world.

Remnant of Failure 

This remnant is tied to the Inquisition. To me, the image of the plain wolf ties this regret to Solas as a man - the one who's eyes were open to the people of Thedas.

“Orb shards, broken by misplaced trust.” - the orb he gave Corypheus, snatched out of his control when the Inquisitor interrupted the ritual and took it's power. The Inquisition placed its trust in him - in the companion who walked beside them - and he placed trust in himself that he could keep his secrets and remain distant - but failed. He also had to trust the Inquisition, trust them to clean up his mess, to protect him when he's at his weakest. Looking back, it feels like trust is misplaced on all sides because every bond was shadowed by what he hid.

The text goes on: “slivers of an irretrievable power.” These are not pieces that can be put back together; they're slivers - small and piercing: the lost orb forcing him to take Mythal's power, the Anchor burned into the Inquisitor, the friendships and/or love that formed in its wake, the secrets pressing down between them. Slivers that can’t be pulled, that keep burrowing deep whenever he touches the memory.

But also interesting are the words “the kindling of regrets.” Kindling is what sparks fire and keeps it burning. This is the regret that doesn’t stop producing more. The broken orb didn’t just end one plan; it lit the blaze of everything that followed - the rise of the Inquisition, the bonds Solas made, his severing of them, walking the din'anshiral and into the events of VG. A single fracture created warmth for a time - connection, friendship and even love - but also ensured the fire would consume everything.

And this is the paradox that keeps the regret "humming with a diffuse, lost vitality.” It's still vibrating, still alive, but can't be resolved. The orb’s destruction might have given him some of the most peaceful times of his ancient life. And because of the Anchor, he lived among mortals in a way he hadn’t before. He was simply Solas - a man who came to care for mortals. But the same accident also meant he would one day have to cut it away, take back what he had given, and sever the bonds that changed him.

Remnant of Reflection 

This remnant is about identity to me. The imagery of paint and palette recalls Solas’ murals in Skyhold and the Lighthouse - his way of curating history, cultivating memory, and how the world sees him - and how he remembers himself.

Here the Dread Wolf dominates the image: six eyes blazing, jaws hanging over a city. Unlike the plain wolf of the Remnant of Failure, which symbolised Solas the man, this is the figure of myth - all-seeing and terrifying. The city beneath evokes Arlathan, destroyed under his rebellion, but it could also stand for every mortal society since, living under the shadow of the Veil. This reflection is not the Solas he knows or longs to be, but the figure history and others paint: a devourer and destroyer.

What makes this remnant more disturbing is the palette description. The codex describes the colours in words like “strange… unsettling… choleric.” These are the hues of something unnatural, disturbing and of sickness. When Solas looks at the Dread Wolf he sees grotesquerie (what he didn't want Lavellan to see).

That grotesquerie is highlighted in Callback. In Skyhold, his frescoes bled into life and manifested as a demon of Regret. It was defeated only when Sutherland voiced his own regret - that he had acted alone and used his friends - which the demon recognized as its own. Dying, it admitted, “There might have been a better way.” Just as regret seeped out of paint and plaster in Skyhold, here it crystallizes in the prison. The Dread Wolf’s likeness, crusted into sickly colors, becomes a mask he can't escape.