#solythal

Dragon Age: Origins

During DAO she sends Morrigan, her next vessel, away with the HoF. Why? To teach her a lesson? To let her experience "the real world"? To harden her through war like she did with Solas? Because she needs her next vessel in a good position geo-politically (recognized as a hero)? Maybe she always knew (because 5D chess is kind of her thing) that Morrigan would attempt the "Dark Ritual" and get June's(?) soul back into a body, which she, Flemythal, can then absorb for power when she eventually takes over Morrigan's body? (That's even one of the contents of her Grimoire that she "doesn't want Morrigan to have" - ergo: she makes the party fight for it/pretends to be scared of a fight so Morrigan won't suspect that she's acting according to Flemythal's plan in trying to obtain the Grimoire)

Who tf can say, they're all on brand for her. BUT sending Morrigan away, for whatever reason, definitely gives her a lot of time to do secret shit without her nosy, sharply intelligent protegé watching.

I'm not 100% on whether Flemythal getting "killed" in her dragon form in DAO is "canon" for the subsequent games but it doesn't really matter whether she "dies" or "flees". As Solas says: "The first of my people do not die so easily." She could have had all kinds of fail-safes in place. (Like the amulet in DA2) How they work? Again, who tf knows. We'll never get answers on how embodied spirits ACTUALLY work re: fragmentation, reincarnation, soul vs. spirit, etc.

What I do think though, is that she was slowly starting to prepare her glorious return as god-queen of this new world. Because there were only two more potential Blights left after the 5th, and I think she wanted all those souls/fragments to add to her own power.

OR: She wants to take down the Veil, free Elgar'nan, and kill him herself. ("I will see her avenged", "A reckoning that will shake the very heavens")

Dragon Age 2

In DA2 she actually gives a ton of cryptic lore hints, but one of the most important ones is the line about "having an appointment to keep".

I think this is about Solas.

Minor headcanon tangent: I think Solas performed the actual ritual to create the Veil in Skyhold (Tarasyl'an te'las - "The place where the sky was held back") but I don't think he/his body slept there. He probably took precautions and somehow managed to get away. Or he had someone, an agent, on standby to do it for him (not Felassan, he would have talked him out of it - someone who would have been obedient and loyal but not personally close to him). I think he somehow ended up in/near Arlathan. Which is north of the Waking Sea. Which is where Flemythal is headed in DA2.

The ritual being performed in the place where Skyhold now stands also makes sense with these codex entries. They mention how, while there are endless signs of elven civilization through the centuries, there is no ruin, no building (nothing beyond Fereldan ones, anyway). They mention how the natural spire/the mountaintop was "flattened". I think it was blown clean off during the ritual. (or Solas flattened it to have a large space for the setup of his ritual and everything involved was disintegrated.)

So, anyway, I think that during DAO Flemythal found out where Solas hid himself/his sleeping body, and she's about to wake him up to make him work with (let's be real: for) her again. And that's what she does after she leaves Kirkwall in DA2.

What does she want from Solas?

a) He contained the Blight twice already - he can do it again. And hopefully more skillfully this time.

b) She needs a confidant, a right hand, and Solas is so emotionally enmeshed with her (see post credits scene in DAI and the VG ending), just seeing her alive will pull him right back in. He may have rebelled - but never truly against HER. (She always took great care to make it seem like she was actually on his side and just "playing the game" "for the benefit of the People" against the other Evanuris.)

c) A second powerful being on her side who also & especially has the ear of the entire Fade? Very useful if/when the Veil comes down and she's leading armies of spirits.

d) Clout among those ancient Elvhen who were against the Evanuris - they might not follow her, but they WILL follow their former rebel leader (maybe with some coaxing).

e) Maybe it was even her plan all along to free Elgar'nan (and Ghilan'nain) when the Veil is taken down so she could kill him/them herself - in which case Solas' power and combat experience would obviously also come in handy. (Plus, from where Flemythal is at, Solas might still have unresolved stuff with Ghilan'nain - an additional motivator.)

I think DA2!Flemythal and DAI!Flemythal really aren't as on board with this new "tranquil" world as VG would have us believe. Both iterations of her still want ONE thing: Revenge. ("Mythal clawed her way through the ages to me, AND I WILL SEE HER AVENGED!") And "For a reckoning that will shake the very heavens."

Ultimately, I think Flemythal (this Flemythal) wants the Veil down and (subsequently) Elgar'nan dead. She wants to see herself restored to her former status as god-queen (who now, conveniently, rules alone), and she wants the elves - old and new - to be the predominant civilization of Thedas again. (Although, maybe she really doesn't care at this point - they're all servants and slaves to her anyway, no matter the shape of their ears.)

Why? Why does anyone want to rule: power, ego, self-satisfaction, a warped understanding of "to rule is to protect", greed, and, in her case, "I showed them!" "My ex-husband can eat shit!"

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Anyway. She wakes Solas up and gives him new orders: He needs to unlock his orb - either for her to eventually take/steal his power or just so he can match her (when she eventually gets "the Old God Soul"/June's power) and actually DO shit.

So Solas, feeling incredibly guilty over "having let Mythal die" (we'll get to that) and "ruining the world", gets to work. Mother Mythal knows best, after all.

He seeks out Felassan, tries to leverage his relationship with Briala into reclaiming the Eluvian network (very useful to Mythal and himself), which fails miserably because Solas severely underestimated how much time passed and how deeply connected Felassan has become to this new state of things. And he kills Felassan (/makes him tranquil), justifying his actions through his loyalty to Mythal (as always).

With the Eluvians a bust (for now), he strategically places his orb in the path of the Venatori and Corypheus, figuring that while HE wouldn't do large-scale blood magic to unlock it, these people definitely have no scruples whatsoever. And he's not even 100% on whether humans are people yet, so who cares? (I'm being a bit facetious.)

However, that plan, as we know, also fails and he is pulled into the events of DAI and probably(?) unable to contact Mythal - or she abandons him for a while (not out of character for her, imo). Maybe they also speak in dreams sometimes? But there's so many templars around, maybe Solas is too careful to try (often).

During his time with the Inquisition, I think Solas still understands himself as acting on Mythal's orders, whether they're actually in contact or not. (We all know what happens during DAI, I'm not repeating all that.)

Edit: Actually one thing lol - the Measuring the Veil side quest. Why? Because to assess how the Veil has changed over the millennia that have passed, how it's behaving after the Breach, how it's reacting to the Anchor, how difficult it will be to take down, where best to start taking it down, etc. - that's all extremely valuable information to both Solas and Flemythal if their ultimate goal is to kill Elgar'nan and weaken the Veil even further. Flemythal probably also doesn't want random chaos and upheaval through the Veil just failing - that's difficult to control. Yes, Solas SAYS "the wards are working again". And the artifacts MAY have a stabilizing effect for the moment. But they probably do much more & he's gathering tons of data (that's also why the quest is called "Measuring" the Veil and not "strengthening" or "securing" the Veil). A sweet lie by omission, exactly befitting his characterization.

The big Flemythal lore drop comes when the Inquisitor actually meets her. This is where we get the "For a reckoning that will shake the very heavens" and the "and I will see her avenged!" lines. The way Flemythal behaves here, and going by what she says and how, I'm pretty convinced that everything is still going to plan for her. With Corypheus out of the way (which she will help with, of course, ever the benevolent problem-solver - so long as it suits her), Solas will be able to reclaim his orb and THEY will be able to enter the Fade/tear down the Veil and take revenge on Elgar'nan.

Slight tangent: She also masterfully manages to somewhat placate Morrigan during this exchange. In preparation for Flemythal taking over her body, she makes her believe that she regrets her emotional distance and neglect, and that she does care for Morrigan, deep down. Pretty obvious emotional manipulation, imo. Morrigan then, predictably, behaves like any abused eldest daughter being offered even just a scrap of a quasi-apology: she self-abandons again and lets Mythal's fragment possess her during/before VG. (Which Morrigan says is not "possession" in the classical sense - but Flemeth's personality also eventually mixed with Mythal - "no more separate than your heart from your chest" - so, in time, it will probably happen to Morrigan too, she's just in denial (or the writers forgot their own lore lol).)

The big one

The post credits scene of DAI where Solas and Flemythal meet (again).

And he doesn't seem THE LEAST BIT surprised to see her.

You'd think that his DEAD former lover/groomer/master/abuser/mother figure popping up in the Crossroads would warrant SOME kind of reaction from him. But nope. He approaches her completely naturally, as if he's RETURNING to her (tail between his legs, as it were). And they talk as if they both know about everything: the orb, the plan connected to it, why they needed it, etc.

(Also just LOOK at his posture: Head down, shoulders hunched, his expression pained - that's an agent returning from a failed mission, not a gleeful murderer facing his next victim.)

She softly chastises him ("You should not have given your orb to Corypheus, Dread Wolf") and they share what LOOKS like an intimate moment but is, in my opinion, actually a show of deep (performative-on-purpose) disappointment on Flemythal's part.

(Look at them! Those two are not equals! Everything in this exchange screams master-slave: her armored claws on his neck; the way he curls into her, holding on to her gauntlet and not her neck, shoulder or face; she's in full regalia, he's in simple, soft clothing;)

This is not a surprising meeting for either of them. The events of DAI have wrapped up, the orb is lost, Flemythal's plans are (for now) dashed.

OR ARE THEY?

I think Flemythal always had a plan B.

Just in case Solas would fail - because he has miscalculated before and she's known him for literally thousands of years. One could say she raised him (like Morrigan).

And that plan B is: Play the sacrifice. (Again.)

She puts her essence/fragment/power/whatever into the Eluvian (to seek out Morrigan) BEFORE Solas arrives. He doesn't know she has another fail-safe in place.

She lets him believe he killed her "for the good of the people" to further motivate him to really see his mission through to the end: take down the Veil, restore Elvhenan, and, with it, her (then in Morrigan's body) as its god-queen, enabling her to take her revenge on Elgar'nan.

Like, he killed his oldest friend, mentor, lover, mother over this goal - he absolutely cannot let it go now. Felassan was already huge, but making Solas believe he killed the most important, most influential person in his whole life with his own hands, that's the final nail in the coffin Dinan'shiral.

So, a desperate, regretful, guilty, sad, heartbroken, emotionally fragile, cptsd-suffering former rebel leader does exactly what Flemythal expected: He severs all his nascent personal ties to this world and puts his all into fulfilling her last order: restoring Elvhenan, restoring "the People". "For her". Because she cared so much for them uwu. (and of course taking care of Elgar'nan because obviously it's all his fault and Mythal needed to be avenged.)

The Origin

So this is DEEP headcanon/theory land but I think that with all this background it makes total sense to assume that Mythal planned all/most of this from as far back as her last meeting with Solas in Elvhenan (the "secret meeting" memory in the Lighthouse).

What was the situation?

The Blight exists. It's uncontrollable and it's making the other Evanuris basically unstoppable and invincible. It will eventually destroy the world. And I do think Mythal cared for "the world", at the very least as her own personal playground. She sees her husband and "children" slowly lose their minds as they grasp for more and more power. Political instability and unrest sweep the empire, ultimately also threatening her own position (because if she doesn't use the Blight, she'll eventually be toppled by the others).

Mythal is smart. She's been a double agent for centuries - keeping Solas and his expertise close, minimizing the impact of his rebellion on her own power (she's "one of the goods ones"), while also profiting from her seat at the table with the Evanuris.

She pretends to not believe Solas at first and goes to "confront" the other Evanuris. Just so the emotional impact on Solas will be greater, since he will believe it's his fault for burdening her with the knowledge of the Blight and "making" her seek proof by herself.

She gets herself killed. It probably didn't take much at all at that point to make Elgar'nan do it. She knows how the dagger works. She's seen other/former Evanuris (there were way more than just Elgar'nan et al.) die. She's taken precautions.

But most of all, she knows Solas: Solas is actually careful, almost timid, by nature (compare his voice lines as a spirit or sometimes during DAI when he's closer to "being Solas" to the way he speaks later/during VG). He didn't want to manifest, he didn't want to make the dagger, he's generally (at his original emotional core) against drastic action unless he's left with no other options. She's had millennia to observe him under emotional distress - in war(s), while he murdered in her service, during his rebellion. She knows his triggers.

And she knows that she is one of them. Likely because she set it up that way from the very beginning, grooming and molding him into something she could use. Their emotional enmeshment, his co-dependency, completely calculated on her part. (And we see her do it again with Morrigan, which is why Morrigan and Solas can't stand each other: they experienced the same trauma by the same mother figure - people hate seeing their own weaknesses reflected back at them in others.)

Solas may not have been ready to do anything really drastic before - centuries of rebellion and the Evanuris were still exactly where they wanted to be. They viewed him as an annoying, yappy dog who was kept in check by Mythal - but he sure as hell would be if Elgar'nan killed the ONE person Solas hung his entire personality and raison d'être on.

So. In order to get rid of the other Evanuris and the Blight (ergo: all competition & uncontrollable variables) in one fell swoop, Mythal had to trigger Solas into finally "embracing his potential" against all better knowledge. Against his actual, original nature: Wisdom.

Mythal's death finally and fully pushed him over the edge into corruption: Pride.

So Mythal dies. Solas is desperately distraught, not only because she's dead, but because it's "his fault" (he "let her go", he "gave her the knowledge", he "didn't try hard enough to convince her to join him", etc.). And in this fraught, volatile emotional state, grieving and angry and vengeful - like she knew he would be - he finally comes up with a plan on the same scale as the sundering of the Titans: the sundering of an entire area of the physical world from the Fade and its use as a prison for Mythal's murderer(s).

The problem: Solas is smart. But he's also arrogant (and not thinking as clearly as he could - a trade-off between Pride and Wisdom). The ritual he devises works, but it works "too well".

And instead of being brought back (maybe through the Well of Sorrows, maybe possessing a servant, maybe her plan was even to possess Solas himself) "right after" the imprisonment of the Evanuris and the Blight, both Mythal and Solas are incapacitated for millennia.

Which doesn't stop her from scheming, of course. She has nothing but time. She finds a way to still influence the physical world (like the corrupted spirit she is), until we finally end up with Flemythal and Morrigan in DAO.

In the end, Mythal won, actually.

When we look at Veilguard, Mythal actually gets basically everything she wanted:

Elgar'nan dies a miserable death (and she helped!), her vengeance finally achieved.

She has a new, powerful vessel with political pull (Morrigan).

She is, once again/still "the good guy".

Solas, the only one who could potentially uncover the truth about her and her plans (if he ever tried to look beyond his conditioning and enmeshment), is banished to the Fade.

The Blight is being taken care of by Solas (who she successfully blamed for causing it in the first place).

The Veil may be up - but that can change. She has time. And influence. And nobody will stop her if/when she decides she wants more power.

And if Kieran exists, she even has a new vessel already lined up (this time even a willing one from the get-go because "I will not be the mother you were to me").

We may see the sun rise over Minrathous in a "woohoo, the good guys saved the day" kind of way - but actually, the true villain, the one who pushed Solas into a body, coerced him into making a weapon of mass destruction, coaxed him into taking part in a genocide that would ultimately lead to the Blight, which is the reason for every single subsequent tragedy - MYTHAL, is the true winner. Even as the status quo is seemingly upheld.

She got exactly what she wanted, the same way she always has: scheming. plotting. ruthless pragmatism. manipulation.

I don't care for Veilguard's sanded-down, sanitized version of Flemythal/Mythal AT ALL. Everything we've seen of her in the three preceding games fits much better with this interpretation, and that's the hill I will personally die on.

In my idealized version of Veilguard, we actually fight against MYTHAL. And we can influence Solas to either finally side against her an recognize her as the monster she is, or we lose him and face him at her side as her loyal attack dog. THAT would have been an absolute banger.

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Disclaimer:

a) All this does NOT mean I think Mythal is a "bad character" or that people who like Mythal or interpret her differently are "wrong" or "bad people". I'm simply arguing for my point of view on the basis of what the text of the games provides. And my perspective is inherently biased because Solas is my favorite character of all time, and in my opinion, Solavellan is THE romance of all time. Please don't view my personal headcanon/theories as an invalidation of your own. Fandom lives through its multitude of perspectives and I appreciate other people's opinions even when I don't share them <3

b) All this does NOT mean that I hate Veilguard. I've said again and again that I enjoyed Veilguard for what it was, especially for the closure it gave me after 10 years of unresolved Solavellan angst. It is possible to critical of a thing you like/enjoy.

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