#solas meta

Like, I imagine he thought he was being subtle but I am sure everyone knew. They saw the blushes. The longing glances. Dorian looked over the balcony and saw him sketching her. Varric caught him looking up love poetry in the library. It was an open secret maybe even before Lavellan herself knew.

They were definitely all gossiping about it. Cass pretended to disapprove but secretly found it romantic. Dorian thought he had no chance of landing her. Varric tried taking Solas aside to give romantic advice. Sera was continually making fun of him.

No matter the Inquisitor - regardless of approval level, or history - they always advocate for another way in that war room before the final battle. That moment is hard-coded into the narrative and after reflecting, I think we can relate it to being about the lived experience the Inquisitor has with the Anchor.

They uniquely know what it feels like to be affected by the Veil.

Spirit of Justinia (Here Lies the Abyss): “It is the needle that passes through the Veil, as little else can. You are the thread. And it is the key that locks or unlocks a door to the Fade… It is part of you now, and cannot be removed without your death.”

The Anchor stitched them into the Veil and shaped them in a way no one else in that war room can fully comprehend. They know what it feels like to be entangled with the Fade and the Veil, to be consumed by something so powerful and to lose agency because of it.

In Solas' binding he releases a sharp cry of pain. The Veil chains him by the wrists, the ankles, the neck - pulling him. The Inquisitor, with their own sharp cries of pain and torment can intuit the physical and metaphysical cost the parasitical effects of the Veil will have on Solas, because they have felt and lived it themselves.

In this scene I believe the Inquisitor has earned the right to speak, because of their direct contact with the Veil, the Fade, and the pain that came with it - and by the fact that, in the end, it was Solas who saved their life. (Their entire journey leading up to Solas is them believing they are going to die, so imagine what's going through their head when Solas actually saves their life.)

That survival creates a strange kind of intimacy between them. Solas doesn’t kill the Inquisitor, even knowing they could become his greatest threat (which goes against his usual pattern). Instead, he tells them the truth, making them a witness to his burden and his plans. What he later calls his “moment of weakness” (The Dread Wolf Take You) draws the Inquisitor into the heart of it all.

Perhaps that’s why, in that war room, they always speak up - at least once.

The endings seem to reflect the different Inquisitors. For those who carry the pain and anger of the Anchor, the loss of their arm, and the loss of agency, forcibly binding Solas can feel like justice. Having him chained, crying out in pain, becomes a mirror of what they once endured.

But for the Inquisitor who believes he can still be saved - who chooses compassion over retribution - the ending shifts. They are there at the end, reaching out. And when Solas does see reason and chooses to bind himself, there are no Veil chains, no cries or struggle. The Veil only waits for him to step forward.

Do you ever think about how modern Thedas is no more real to Solas than the alternate, dystopian future was to us? He woke up after thousands of years to find an unrecognizable world filled with oppression and magical imbalance, where the elves he sought to liberate now inhabit the lowest position in society as either slaves, servants, or in poverty. It isn't simply that the world isn't valuable as it is. It's that the world does not feel real. The people in it are disconnected from the fade and so to him, they feel like tranquil. And yet despite this world seeming no more real than a bad dream, Solas still cares about the people in it. He always approves of taking time to help out strangers, and enjoys discussing with the other companions to learn their perspectives and even encourages them during particularly difficult times (such as Cassandra's loyalty crisis with the seekers or Iron Bull abandoning the Qun). He dislikes violence and decisions that take away peoples' freedom. Even though this world isn't fully real to him, he still feels compassion for the people living in it.

And if the inquisitor comes to see him as a true friend or, Maker forbid, falls in love with him, the illusion snaps. The present is no longer a nightmarish dream world. It is real, and the people in it are real. But... so is the world he came from. The memories of that time are still fresh, no more than a couple years in the past to him. They are closer to him than memories of the COVID pandemic are to us. He can surely still remember vividly the taste of foods long gone, the beauty of magic-imbued cities, and the vibrant life of a civilization that was never separated from the fade--which is the way the world was natural designed to be.

Despite the obfuscation, the essence of his past is there for anyone discerning to see. He was once betrayed and it ruined his ability to trust. He has a home but cannot return to it. He has experienced horrible loss and grief that he cannot bear to talk about. He has experienced violence and war and tragedy. "The man on the island" story he tells Varric is presented as a hypothetical but is incredibly transparently about himself. He is not honest about the facts of these truths, but he is plainly emotionally honest about them. His lies about who he is fall apart pretty quickly, but I think it makes sense for a sympathetic Lavellan not to pry. If I had made a friend who was this clearly traumatized by something in their past, I wouldn't pry, either.

All Inquisitors can be kind, caring, compassionate, but it takes a special level of strength to be kind after losing everything. Lavellan is taken from her old life, turned into a religious symbol for her oppressors, and stripped of her identity and culture. There is an undeniable alienation she experiences, both from the shemlen, and then from her own beliefs (and her People/Clan) as she goes through the events of the game; she learns that the history she worked so hard to study and preserve was built on the backs of slaves, that her gods were tyrants and slavers, and that Fen’Harel’s name was ruined through millennia of propaganda and perpetuated lies. She is changed from her time as the Inquisitor and from falling in love with Solas—mentally, physically, and spiritually. She fell in love with the god, with the monster, her people were taught fear, and as the stories go, Fen’Harel’s touch leaves you forever marked.

The Dread Wolf’s name is not worshipped in reverence; it is invoked in fear, in anger—it is a curse, reviled, and spit like the most corrosive of poisons.

But that isn’t who Lavellan falls in love with. Just like the Inquisitor, Fen’Harel is a title and mask worn by a broken man forced into a role he didn’t want.

She was taken, twisted, turned into something she didn’t want, but she did not let it break her. The world had taken so much from her time and time again, yet they continued to demand. She gave up her home, her life, eventually her friends, and even the very organization she dedicated everything to. Forced to make decisions that shed as much blood as it saved. The rest of her life was spent in pursuit of a man looking to end the world, long after she’s already saved it once before. She holds her head high and bears the weight of the world like she was Atlas himself. The Inquisitor bends and bows, but never does she break. Despite this, despite it all, she still remains kind. And Solas? Sweet, gentle Solas. His heart is still so kind but he’s hardened it.

A romanced Lavellan wants to help Solas, to save him from himself. She sees the mask for what it is and knows the man—the spirit—hiding behind it all. Wisdom, taken from his home, turned into a weapon and then a symbol—a god. Forced to fight for what is just, Fen’Harel breaks under the trauma wrought upon him and by him.

He is weighed down by duty and service—to Mythal and to his People. The world was broken by his actions, and he seeks to rend another to restore what was sundered.

Wisdom was lost, turned to Pride. It hides under the guise of Fen’Harel because he believes it is not what the world needs.

The Evanuris claim that Fen’Harel is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, when he was a weapon forged by their own hand.

Lavellan chooses to walk the Dinan’shiral with Solas. Maybe for some, it is because they, too, believe the Veil must come down, and the world restored to its natural state. But, as loredrinker said in their fantastic post, it may be because of connection. They see that Solas is suffering; that he’s been alone. This path would break what was left of the gentle Wisdom underneath it all. The Path of Death, he called it.

She said so herself: “I will save you.”

She walks the Dinan’shiral, not as Solas does, but parallel to him. She does not walk it expecting to reap death, but to stop it. They’ve both experienced loss—lived through horrors no being should ever experience. Leaders, symbols—burdens taken on by shoulders that shouldn’t bear them alone.

And Lavellan will not allow Solas to bear this alone. As she had done with her friends in the Inquisition, she is offering him connection. She will ease his burden if he would let her. Despite the isolation she no doubt feels, she makes sure none of her friends ever feel alone. She supports each of them, gives them a shoulder to lean on, and takes their pain as her own because that’s just who she is.

I will bear this weight with you. You are my heart. We walk this path together. Pain, terror, a terrible future, but you do not have to go alone.

And in the end, the wolf finally takes it. And oh, what a relief it must be after all this time. Millennia, suffering. Alone, lonely, on a path he set for himself, believed to end in eternal isolation. After all, Solas’ worst fear is dying alone.