#obsessed nerd

First off . . . fuck you, DreamM, for talking down to Solasmancers like we're a bunch of morons just for wanting some closure. Fuck you.

My first Inquisitor was a Lavellan who romanced Solas, and I did not go into that romance expecting a happy ending.

But I did expect AN ENDING.

Silly me. I'm so stupid for expecting that my character would get some fucking closure.

Instead, my character is defeated by Solas, utterly, in every conceivable way -- sort of in the same way she defeated Corypheus, ironically enough -- and there's nothing she can do.

That sucks.

People play video games because they want a power fantasty. This includes the power to WIN in the end, not lose horribly and be sidelined for a new protagonist.

The Inquisitor is the only DA protagonist who loses their final fight. They are also the only DA protagonist whose ending we don't get to play out. Trespasser made it painfully obvious that she/Quizzy will be hiring the DA4 protagonist to fight Solas in her place, while probably showing up as a crappy NPC every now and then.

Imagine for a second if people who romanced Morrigan never got that Witch Hunt dlc?

Or imagine for a second if Hawke was never allowed to confront Anders for his betrayal?

People would be just as mad. But Solasmancers have the gall to want closure, power over our situtation, and some kind of actual ending for our character, so we're just silly morons, right?

Fuck you. Fuck you and every Dragon Age fan who thinks like you.

As someone whose canon warden was a Dalish who sacrificed herself to the Archdemon (after romancing Alistair) I am not afraid of sad endings. I also didn't go into the Solas romance foolishly thinking the ending would be happy.

I can handle tragic endings just fine. What I CAN'T handle is having no ending at all.

My Warden got her ending. My Hawke got her ending. My Inquisitor gets no ending. Instead, she sits on the sidelines while someone else finishes her story.

Granted, I could be reacting prematurely. For all we know, the Inquisitor might get closure with Solas in DA4, and instead of her being some poorly done NPC, maybe we'll actually be able to control her.

This is how I imagine (and hope) DA4 will play out.

Solas succeeds in taking down the Veil. Story opens with New Protagnoist seeing this happen and it probably kills thier family or something, so a personal motive for the NP is established in regards to Solas.

I mean, who in their right mind would go up against an elven god who can turn people to stone otherwise? This is why I've often said in the past the new protagonist will need a motive as personal as the Inquisitor's. Otherwise, throwing yourself at a god makes zero sense.

If someone in ancient armor descended from the sky right now and blow a hole in the middle of Missouri, how many of us would leap forward to kick his ass?

Heroes in fiction are often driven by personal vendettas (even the Inquisitor might be sealing the Breach just to save their own ass), and the ones who are duty and honor driven usually have the power to back up being recklessly stupid. I imagine the NP won't be initially so powerful that they will try fighting Solas off the bat (no, not even a mage). I imagine they will become powerful, though.

After the Veil is destroyed, the Elven Gods rise, and the Inquisitor mentors the new protagonist in thier work against Solas and the Elven Gods.

New Protagonist cleverly leads Solas into a trap, where the Inquisitor ambushes him and captures or kills him with some kind of powerful artifact (I mean, if this happens in Tevinter, there's bound to be something there that can stop Solas).

If Bioware isn't cruel, they will allow us to control the Inquisitor as she is facing down Solas (mine would be killing him, not capturing him, even though -- yes -- she romanced him).

With Solas dead, locked behind a mirror (again), or otherwise incapacitated, the Inquisitor gets to have her closure and her ending. Yay.

New Protagonist, after growing into a powerful hero under Quizzy's mentorship, then goes on to fight the Elven Gods. Wins. Then end.

I could live with this.

But even if everything played out just like I wanted, I'm still not buying DA4.

Why?

Because Bioware has already proven that they don't care about consistency. They don't care about honoring their own lore. They still don't care about their female audience: the majority of our romances are always tradgic and fucked up -- plus, they take way too much pleasure in mocking Cullenites and Solasmancers in the game itself. And finally, they are anti-indigenous, anti-pagan bigots.

All this time, I assumed the synths in the Commonwealth were at least part organic because it's well established that they were made from Father's DNA. I mean . . . that's why he's called Father. It's also the entire plot.

I guess they weren't actually made from his DNA but were modeled after it. To be honest, I can't remember Father's explanation because I tend to space out when he's talking.

You know, if this was the case, it would fit my theory well.

Disclaimer: I am not that familiar with FO lore because I'm not as invested in it as I am with other games (see my tag #obsessed nerd/obsessive nerd). Use that to discredit me or hand-wave my opinions as a fan, but whatever. This is my theory.

I have a theory that pre-war people are all super human compared to post-war people simply because they are unradiated.

Look at the Cabots. All of them -- the sister Emogene especially -- can fight and are strong. Emogene walks around the post-apocalyptic world like it's nothing, smashing any raiders that get in her way. Sound familiar? Yeah. She sounds like the SS.

I guess you could say it was their father's whacked out blood that was making the Cabots strong. I can't remember if the family started taking the blood before or after the war.

Point is, pre-war people aren't super human, it's just that all the modern people are weak because they've been exposed to radiation for 200 years, so the unradiated pre-war people, who are strong by comparison, seem like gods to them.

This would explain why the Institute would kill all the other members of Vault 111. Imagine if SS and all her/his neighbors all woke up and decided to take over the Commonwealth. They would all be gods among weak, radiated people. And maybe some of them would be assholes who would rule as tyrants, or else just go on a killing spree. To be safe, the current Institute director ordered all the pre-war people in the vault killed simply because they -- being unradiated and thus "super human" -- posed a potential threat.

I mean, it was enough that they were taking Shaun, a pre-war human, inside the Institute. They brainwashed Shaun heavily growing up, because if he wasn't properly afraid of the surface, he would easily just kill everyone in the Institute and leave if he wanted. They successfully brainwashed him and he never left, even became loyal and afraid of the surface enough that he never went up once except after meeting you.

More support for this theory: because the synths were modeled after Father's DNA (and thus after the sole survivor's), the synths -- and coursers especially -- are typically stronger than humans.

This is why the SS can kill a courser and sees it as nothing, while everyone else is piss-in-their pants afraid of them: the coursers were modeled after pure, pre-war DNA. So they have those "super powers" of a pre-war human, namely the SS.

It seems this knowledge of a pre-war human's superior vitality wasn't passed down in the Institute, as Justin Ayo expresses bafflement that you were able to defeat his courser.

Either that, or Justin Ayo was testing you to see if you had figured out that you could easily kill everyone in the vicinity -- coursers included -- on your own. He was testing the waters, trying to see if you were ignorant of your own power or if you were truly a threat. 

I'm more inclined to believe he was simply testing you to see if you’d figured things out. I’d be surprised if Justin Ayo didn’t have access to a lot of knowledge being SRB.

The other scientists, however, seem baffled at your strength. During "A House Divided," they are shocked when you manage to get past a couple Gen 1 synths and some turrets -- which should be laughably easy at this point -- and can't believe it when you continue to plough through everything they throw at you.

So, the strength, vitality, and danger of pre-war humans seems to be a secret that only a few Institute scientists are privy to.

Perhaps Father, after becoming Director, (and now a harmless old man who couldn’t benefit from the knowledge) learned the truth about pre-war strength and realized that you were probably incredibly powerful and could survive the Wasteland. He released you from the vault, lured you to him, and then once he met you, couldn't even tell you why he would so coldly send you into danger. During the conversation on the roof stop after Bunker Hill, he couldn't tell you about your own super powers because, at that point he still doesn't feel as if he can completely trust you not to massacre his people.

So if all this was true, imagine how that rooftop conversation went for Shaun. He confesses to doing a terrible thing by releasing his own parent into a highly hostile environment where death is a certainty -- I mean, most people would have enough decency not to do this to a random stranger, let alone their own parent, however estranged -- so to the SS, he just sounds cold and cruel. But deep down, he knew you would probably survive simply because you were pre-war and unradiated (though it was still a dick thing to do).

In past posts, I’ve often referred to Father as cold and cruel. I was not saying this because I hate the character (I don’t really) but because it’s a fact. He was raised like a guinea pig in a lab. He was such a void that he had to use science -- the only thing he knows -- to run an experiment on his own parent just so he could understand what love is.

That’s how fucked up the Institute made Shaun. Sure, he seems well-adjusted, but he’s actually not. I think the FEV labs are evidence enough of that. Do you really think people in the Institute were hugging Shaun and tucking him in with bedtime stories and actually loving him? Kellogg being such a dick about that -- by sarcastically assuring you that Shaun is in a good place where he’s safe and loved -- was such  a shitty thing in hindsight.

The seeming super strength of pre-war people would also explain why the SS is so extraordinary. Everyone in the Commonwealth is in awe of the SS (Deacon being their number one fan). They're an overpowered god walking around, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. And it's because they aren't radiated and can even become immune to it, while retaining their pre-war vitality -- unlike pre-war ghouls, who have been weakened by the radiation like everyone else.

That's a line from A Wizard of Earthsea in the chapter where Ged is almost tricked into letting himself get possessed by an evil spirit.

"Evil can not come unless invited" is a very old storytelling device, usually used to portray the weakness of a hero in a story. If evil comes, it's because the hero had a moment of weakness, etc.

It's one of my favorite "tropes," for lack of a better word. And even though it's been used in stories since the dawn of time, I feel like Le Guin set the precedence for it in modern storytelling.

We see it repeated in just about any story with supernatural elements. Vampires can not cross a threshold without being invited in Buffy. Spirits can't enter a person without consent in Dragon Age.

I think one of the things in Trespasser that really convinced me that Solas was (once) a pride demon had to do with Cole's inane ramblings in the DLC. Cole will say "He didn't want to come but she asked him" which may or may not be referring to Mythal and Solas.

A while back, I posed a theory that all the elven gods were simply elves who practiced spiritbinding, which would have made them powerful enough to stop the titans. Each elven god bound themselves to one of the Forbidden, becoming powerful abominations that were able to defeat the titans.

When the Forgotten ones were summoned by the elven gods to be bound in service, they refused and were banished for refusing to help in the titan war. So the Forbidden ones were bound instead.

Each elven god then bound themselves to a spirit.

What I'm driving at here? Mythal summoned Solas and bound him to her in her service. Solas and Mythal became one, and Solas helped Mythal to defeat the titans and save the elven people.

Later, when the elven gods became tainted and evil and Mythal was slain, Solas carried on living. Now separated from Mythal, he burned her slave markings off his face (again, something Cole hinted at) leaving the mark on his forehead, and decided to avenge his friend by fighting for the elven people in a war against the gods.

Given all the indications in the DA lore itself, a relationship between a person and the spirit sharing their body is a very intimate one. Solas and Mythal had to be very close after that experience. So them touching foreheads and everything in the epilogue would have made sense given this theory.  

I know most people are probably sitting with their fingers paused over their keyboard, ready to reblog this with a reminder that Solas denies being like Mythal in Trespasser.

That's because Solas isn't like Mythal. That doesn't mean he's not a pride demon turned flesh. If Lavellan asks if he's like Mythal, Solas will say he's always been Solas. . . . in other words, he's always been Pride. It's the same way Cole could say he's always been Compassion.

This is just another lie by omission, which Solas does pretty casually to Lavellan's face. He tells her the truth but not the whole truth, and he's perfectly comfortable doing it in this case because her knowing he used to be a demon would just be icing on the cake after all the other lies.

Then if Lavellan should ask Solas to take her with him, he says he wouldn't have her see what he'll become. You can take this figuratively and assume he means becoming an even bigger jerk by killing everyone. But I think Solas is referring to some kind of transformation that will happen to him when he takes the Veil down.

As I said in an older post, it's mentioned in DA that spirits are formless and frightening to mortals in their true form. If Solas took the Veil down -- and if he really is a pride demon made flesh -- then he will return to his true, horrifying form and likely scare the hell out of Lavellan.

For me, it all makes sense.

Yeah. I still think of the DA lore sometimes. I loved this game for years and invested years in it, only to come to the dismal realization that the game is fucking racist and religiously intolerant. Which is utterly depressing. Because part of me still loves the lore. I love plenty of flawed things, but I can't love something that openly supports Manifest Destiny and the justification of mass genocide. I . . . can't.

Also, the religious intolerance.

There are so many different people across the world who worship spirits as gods. To make a mockery of that and reduce it to "savage demon worship" is really shitty of Bioware. Yet if the opposite had been done and Christianity had been disparaged as a bunch of demon worship or false foolishness, there would have been an uproar.

What's really ironic? Everything about Christianity is based on PAGANISM.

Christianity is, like, the ultimate form of culture appropriation. Taking other people's shit and pretending it's yours, then telling those same people they're inferior for continuing in the same traditions you stole from them.

Ah. Those were the days.

Well, here's some thoughts I had recently about Solas. I guess I'll make a crazed Solas rant for old times sake. This is my Christmas gift to you, Dragon Age followers. ;)

I remember seeing someone say (not on this website) that it's entirely unrealistic -- in fact, it's crazy -- that we're expected to believe Solas could fuck up so royally and still, STILL not learn from his mistakes. And on top of that, he's willing to screw over the one person who loved him and accepted him? The one person who proved again and again that the people of modern Thedas were actually people?

What could have been a beautiful story of redemption instead turned into a narrative of what big screw ups the elves are, and people are still asking . . . why?

I've said this before and I'll say it again.

Solas can not over come his nature because Solas IS Pride.

Solas is a Pride demon.

It's not a name. He didn't name himself after his faults or his screw ups. Solas is LITERALLY Pride.

It's still my belief that when he originally put up the Veil, Solas wound up on the wrong side of it, which made him mortal flesh -- like Cole. This is why he identifies so strongly with Cole. It's also why he gets upset when you try to make Cole more human: Solas did not ask to become an elf. He probably hated being made flesh, until he discovered women. He even has a (hilariously pervy) banter where he asks Cole if he likes women yet.

Pride can not learn or grow or change except to become a spirit of Wisdom. This is why Solas sought friends in Wisdom. In Inquisition, we learn that this is a man who is struggling to overcome his own nature and become something better. Ultimately, he fails at that (too).  

Solas is, in essence, the literal Pride of the elven people. He is the hubris of the elves. He is their downfall. Pride -- hubris -- is the opposite of godlike. It's foolish. It's faulted. And sometimes it's straightup evil.

All of it is insulting to the elves, actually. It's just yet another way the story of Dragon Age demonizes the elves for being proud. How many times have we heard people (white people) say that indigenous people brought their own demise upon themselves and thus "deserved" what happened to them at the hands of invaders? Constantly.

It's a lie white invaders told themselves to justify all that slavery and genocide and rape. It's a lie that was passed down generation after generation, so that even today, people like Mel Gibson still believe indigenous people were proud, evil, violent savages who brought about their own demise through internal conflict. And thus, we have white guys like Gaider and Weekes writing this racist shit about the elves and this inferiority of theirs that they can not overcome because, well, it's the nature of the beast to be inferior, I guess.

This is the entire premise of Dragon Age. Solas is the embodiment of elven pride. He is their weakness. He is the thing that cripples the elven people and makes them "inferior" to pure, good, holy Christian humans in the game.

So, given the racist theme throughout the whole of Dragon Age's narrative, none of us should really be surprised that Solas is so inferior he can't do shit-right, not even learn from his past shit-wrongs.

I find it wonderfully ironic, actually. People of color are constantly depicted as inferiors who can't let go of the past or learn from their mistakes, but white people are the ones who refuse to learn from THEIR mistakes.

White people are not, and never have been, superior to ANYONE. And yet, we are still trying to get this point across. Come on now.

Invading the lands of indigenous peoples was not a good thing or a righteous holy thing, and those people were not bloodthirsty savages who deserved it.

Indigenous people did not need to be saved from thier "demon worship" or converted to your religion.

Indigenous people did not need you to improve their lives with your dangerous technology -- violent guns that made the world more violent and machines that polluted and destroyed nature.

Indigenous people did not destroy themselves -- they were destroyed by your invading ancestors. What happened to the Mayans? White people killed them.

And finally, no, Dragon Age fans, indigenous people did *not* deserve to die and were not "just as bad as whites" for fighting back against invaders as hard as they possibly could. Minding your own fucking buisness in your own fucking country only to have some strangers come along and rape your wife makes the indigenous people pretty fucking innocent to me.

You can not whitesplain away or justify invasion, genocide, cultural genocide, mutilatation, facism, and rape.

And even if my theory is wrong and Solas is not, in fact, a pride demon, Solas still isn't going to learn from his mistakes in DA4 because he's an "inferior" elf.

That is the entire point of the elven story: elves/indigenous people are inferior.

Yes, I realize Weekes' wife is First Nation. That doesn't make him immune to the racist ideals that have been passed down to him through institutional racism. It's fucking obvious he's not immune, or city elves -- elves who have assimilated into human/white Christian culture -- would not be the only "good" elves in Dragon Age.

Now, if Solas is given the chance to learn from his mistakes and be with Lavellan in DA4, I'll chalk that up to the white writers finally learning from history's mistakes.

I don't believe Solas can escape his nature, and this is why he is doomed to repeat mistake after mistake. He is too proud to face his mistakes, he would rather scramble to "fix" them, thus causing more misery. He is too proud to ever give up. He is too proud to ask for help unless there is clearly no alternative -- which is why the Inquisitor has the option to act shocked when Solas asks for help saving his friend Wisdom.

If the Inquisitor is humble, Solas disapproves, and will even go so far as to call it "false humility." He can't believe that someone that intelligent (he thinks they're intelligent if he has high affection) could be unaware that they are powerful, skillful, and charismatic. He can't grasp that someone could be that powerful and still be humble about it.

Vivienne even straight up calls Solas a demon in one banter, and it reminded me of the Horrowing in DAO, where the Warden is tempted by a demon disguised as her friend.

Just something I was thinking about. This is my theory. No one has to believe it and, no, I don't think it's 100% correct. That's why it's a THEORY.

I remember two years ago when I was making theories about Solas being a spirit (now, I think he's a spirit made flesh, like Cole) and how his fans scrambled in a near panic to prove me wrong. I was mocked, hounded, and ridiculed. I had people sneeringly trying to disprove me over and over again by posting shitty posts on their blogs that mocked me indirectly. It was a really toxic place to be for me.

What I find interesting is that so many people panicked at the mere IDEA of Solas being a spirit or even having been one once (again, like Cole). A big part of Solas' personality is that he loves spirits and sees them as people. After Trespasser, it makes perfect sense: spirits were a big part of elven society and it's even hinted that the elves WERE spirits of some sort.

Loving spirits and seeing them accepted as people is a HUGE part of who Solas is and you will gain a HUGE amount of approval every time you treat spirits with compassion and respect.

I used to think that too. It would've made Trespasser pretty epic, but there was already the Anchor: Solas *already* had a magical connection to the Inquisitor. He already had the power to control them, even torture them with the Anchor, the same way Corypheus could with the orb. Which really explains why he alone could make the Anchor stop killing the Inquisitor.

The reason I no longer believe this theory? I think Flemeth (the lady who sees the future) was one step ahead, knew Solas was coming, and put Mythal's spirit through the mirror to find Morrigan before he could kill her. Therefore, when next we see Morrigan, she will have finally fulfilled her role as the new Mythal.

The only problem with this theory is that Mythal might be too integral to Flemeth's body and spirit. When asked, Flemeth will explain to the Inquisitor that Mythal is a part of her as much as her heartbeat (or something) and that the two of them are one.

Looking back at Anders (the only other person we know who shared their body with a justice spirit that turned into a vengeance demon), he and Justice/Vengenace had become nearly one person and could not be separated. Like Mythal and Flemeth?

Now, looking at what we were told in Jaws of Hakkon (argh, my memory is way too good when it comes to Dragon Age, lol) we learn from the Augur that mages who corrupt a spirit into a demon and can't be separated from said demon have to be slain.

This means that there is no known cure for people like Anders. And since I suspect Mythal has actually been corrupted into a demon of vengeance by Flemeth's rage, there is no cure for her either.

It might just be safe to conclude that both Flemeth and Mythal are actually dead, as -- given this logic -- Flemeth wouldn't have been able to separate Mythal from herself. But it's Flemeth. She could have found a way the Avvar didn't know about.

Somehow, I still believe Mythal survived, even if Flemeth didn't. Somehow, I still believe the next time we see Morrigan, she will not be alone in her body.

And I highly, highly doubt the choice at the Well will make any difference whatsoever. Our choices no longer matter. In fact, they haven't mattered since Awakening. What the Inquisitor did or didn't do at the Well will ultimately mean nothing. The Well was about defining Morrigan and Solas as characters. Nothing more.

It's one of those choices like the Dark Ritual: Bioware will hype it up like it's something important, then decide they don't want to alienate some players and make the choice mean nothing.

This kind of reminds me of the Aegean apocalypse, where a series of earthquakes destroyed all the greatest powers in the world and brought an end to an entire age. The foreigners (the humans in Dragon Age) came on in and took over. (google "The Sea People")

Then the elves decide to put an end to the earthquakes. And Mythal is against it, beause she is magically all knowing and all wise and knows that slaying the titans -- the literal earth -- could be a bad, bad thing. But the People are constantly at odds with their very environment. They are dying. So Mythal leads the other elven gods in a war on the titans that makes her a goddess.

Of course, Mythal is right. Killing the titans and spilling their blood -- the earth's blood -- was something that was never supposed to happen. The dwarves were "born" and the Blight was unleashed. The elves tried to use the lyrium but it was tainted, and they became tainted and went insane. Then blood sacrifices happen, elves are slaughtered left and right by the crazy gods, Mythal is slain, it's the end of the world, and Solas gets pissed and throws up a big barrier that splits the world in half.

Hell, maybe the ancient elves were foolish enough to taste raw, tainted lyrium. That's soemthing else that makes people crazy in this world (Bartrand went crazy from raw, tainted red lyrium, and the people in Origins like Sandal are "lyrium addled" from normal lyrium). It's pretty clear looking at all the game evidence that titan blood -- the earth's blood -- was never supposed to see oxygen.

And all of this is a pretty awesome story. What sucks is that the elves are completely villianized and seem to be responsible for every shitty thing in the world while, ironically enough, blaming the humans for every shitty thing in the world. We have not been given enough evidence to sympathize with them as desperate people. Instead, it's likely the dwarves were slaves with branded faces, mining lyrium for the elves, and Solas never explains how the taint caused the gods to go evil -- which would have cleared up his hatred for the Grey Wardens. As well as explained why Corypheus came to Arlathan/The Golden City and discovered it was already tainted.