so he wore mythal's vallaslin. and this from solas, who developed a technique to remove the vallaslin from the faces of slaves. i get it. i do

but there are a few terms used to describe people in relation to the evanuris.

slave

chosen

beloved

these are different terms. i think assuming they are entirely interchangeable synonyms is... odd. in veilguard, morrigan - who may or may not have drank from the well of sorrows, who may or may not be under mythal's geas - calls solas the beloved of mythal

not her slave

her beloved

solas wore mythal's vallaslin. but as what? her slave? her chosen? or her beloved? no one - not cole, not morrigan, not solas, not any version of mythal, not even elgar'nan in the murals or in person, for that matter - refers to solas as mythal's slave. the closest elgar'nan - in the mural - comes is calling solas her lap dog

the emerald knights. "knight enchanters," the original ones, fighting alongside wolves. solas, who can transform into a wolf... if he was her dog, i'm inclined to think it is more literal than not. her chosen. her wolf. perhaps even the first iteration of this dynamic. not a slave, though; more of a knight. perhaps a bodyguard. but more likely something far more complex than any of these simple titles. but whatever the relationship, it was sufficient for him to be marked for her

morrithal refuses point-blank to fight solas. what's more, she sounds absolutely miserable at the prospect. that's not coming from morrigan herself. why would it? she barely knew solas. no, that's from mythal. from her memories or her aspect still living in morrigan or however you choose to interpret it, that refusal is still more of mythal than it is of morrigan

he speaks of how the evanuris were generals, then kings, then seen as gods. it was the gods who enslaved the people. what of the stage of generals? of kings? what did vallaslin mean then?

mythal's deaths

watcher!mythal similarly refuses to fight solas. she tells rook she loves him

in arlathan, mythal - on solas' word - confronted the evanuris about using the blight. she was murdered for it

at the end of inquisition, flemythal, so much more powerful than solas, knew that he was coming. she was prepared. and she let him take of her. she let him destroy what she was, and take what she had painstakingly accumulated over millenia

in veilguard, watcher!mythal, if rook convinces her that they are right for this job, will willingly yield her essence. that word might provide a comfortable degree of separation, but for this mythal? this particular incarnation? the watcher herself? it's not some abstracted part of her power that she's yielding, but her very being. her life. her consciousness. her spirit... and this, from a spirit

if solas was nothing more than a pawn, a tool, a weapon... nothing more than her loyal dog, trained to heel at her command... if he was nothing more than an extension of her will...

why would she die for him?

the first time, in arlathan, it is unclear if she knew the threat she went towards. but afterwards? twice, she either died or risked death for him

what wielder would do this for what tool?

it's not a retcon. it's not a rewrite. it's the path that's been laid out, quite clearly

mythal was never meant to be the enemy in this story. morally complex? yes. flawed? yes. twisted, bitter, at times profoundly cruel? yes

but the enemy? solas' enemy? the "bad guy"? no

mythal is not saint. flemythal's relationship with morrigan is... fraught, to put it way too simply. but her relationship with morrigan is not reflective of her relationship with solas, nor the inverse. she is an ancient elf, from the time of arlathan. one who has, in some form or another, stayed awake and conscious from then to now. contrasted with solas' awakening one year before inquisition

the way solas returns the inqusitor's early flirtations... this, to me, is in line with the game of arlathan. it is so smooth, so eloquent, and so quick. someone approaches him with interest and he knows how to respond to that interest immediately

this isn't to say there's no truth in it at all, either. just that it's a learned behavior. and he gets a bit of a kick out of totally turning the tables and flustering them. but it's not anything super serious at that point

i think the fade kiss is one of the bigger, realer moments for him, but at the same time, he's still leaning on learned behavior. i truly think he wants them at this point and that there is an element of the intuitive, the reactive, the instinctual in the way he slots their legs together, in the way he deepens the kiss into something very intense, but it's also leaning a bit on what he's learned to do. it's hard to do otherwise! countless centuries of participation in these activities in arlathan, so much of this is deeply internalized

but the way he approaches them afterwards, wanting to talk... i think that's him trying to draw a veil (heh) between them, yes, and to minimize the pursuit he fell into, yes, but it's also because he doesn't want to play the game with them. he wants to know them. he's full of conflict, and is at his best, in a way, when any one behavior can have multiple benefits. in this case, he's distancing himself from the kiss, quickly steering the conversation away from physical intimacy and his own true and performed desperation, and into a much safer territory... while also being able to indulge in his own developing interest

and, lbr, this man likes to converse. i know the fandom jokes about how he talks so much, and he does, to a degree... but it's conversation that he enjoys, not monologuing. he relishes the chance to have a deep discussion with someone. he does not share his stories with the inky randomly, only when asked, and he approves of them asking him to tell him these things, but also asking questions afterwards, about keeping an open mind

but the absolute turning point in the romantic relationship is not in haven. it's not in the fade. it's on the balcony. it's after wisdom.

the inky can show solas that they understand that a spirit is his friend. that he cares about it. they can try and help him free it. (note: i haven't done alternative playthroughs of this particular quest because I Don't Fucking Wanna)

and that is the big shift. for many reasons! one of which is, of course, the fact that solas himself is a spirit. or was, but truly, i think he still is in many fundamental ways. but it is also about the inky being open-minded, not just in words, but in actions. because when they arrive, there is no gentle spirit waiting for them... there is a demon

the inky can choose to trust solas, to trust that even though it is a demon in front of them, that there may still be something they can do. that is the turning point for solas. that is why he approaches them on the balcony. that is why he brings up the kiss again. that is when he first tells them he loves them

because he does. he does

now, this is a meta about sex, and i haven't forgotten! things are left up for interpretation on whether or not solas and the inquisitor had sex. but setting that aside, i think it's worth considering what sex with someone he has fallen in love with would mean to him

now, i write him as demisexual. to be clear, this wasn't something i set out to do intentionally, but the more i wrote him the more clearly his demisexuality manifested. so he's had sex. he's also had sex with mythal, a woman he genuinely loves and is loved by (at least in my view), so intimate sex with a physical desire for the other person is not entirely unknown... but it was not something he thought to ever have again

and i think arlathan ruined sex for him for a long time. instead of a form of intimacy, it became a tool. a weapon. i suspect he and mythal's sexual relationship slowed until it was all but nonexistent, because it just felt fraught and complex

so to find his way back to it again...

i think he's fighting with himself. boldly leading, his body a tool... and he has to stop himself, because he doesn't want that. not with them. if it's during inq, he probably allows a certain amount of that. because he still has to manipulate them. he doesn't want to, but they still can't know who he is

but after... or even after veilguard, in the fade... confident hands on their arms turn to clutching ones, trembling, and his breathing sharpens. he's trying to bury the learned behavior. he wants to be here, to feel this. i can see it going many ways.... starting only to stop, maybe a bunch of times... or letting his partner lead, try to ease him into just reacting instead of guiding, to soften his learned behaviors until they eventually fade away and let something more sincere emerge

they could talk it out. they could feel it out. he could force himself to perform until the performance drops away (i doubt any partner would want that, but it could be solas' choice to do that anyway without consulting them)

and i think this is why being dommed is easier for him, in my view. and why especially being pushed all the way into subspace is easier for him. because suddenly the barriers drop and he's a raw nerve and he's all reaction. there's no performance left. and the fact that he's safe, that he's held afterwards, that as he shakes he's comforted, it makes all the difference

(because i like to explore him being in subspace in arlathan... and it being a vulnerability. whether it's used against him or not i tend to keep intentionally vague, but he knows it is a vulnerability, and any vulnerability can be exploited)

but i also think him finding his way towards his own desires - and particularly any desires around domination or sadism - would be very, very important and cathartic for him as well. anything he does with his lover is going to be completely consensual, but if they want to be dommed by him, if they are a masochist, then he can explore those desires in himself, too, in a safe way

because i do think solas probably has... a lot of kinks. ppl can have kinks for any reason, but ppl can also develop kinks based around their own traumas. so i think he'd have some where that is the origin. and that doesn't make them bad! but it's something i think he'd struggle with, and struggle with the morality of them

sex as a tool is easy. you use it to meet your own ends. you know how far you are willing to go, and that's how far you go. you're in control, even when you're play-acting at vulnerability, unless you're not in control because someone's using the tool on you instead...

This is more interpretative, but I think the reason she saw him as a threat – and took form in order to limit what damage he could do – is both because of her nature (Benevolence/Retribution) and because of her experience. I’ve come to view her as a spirit who would leave the Fade in order to tend to people, like Cole (Compassion) did. Namely, helping victims, and enacting her retribution upon their assailants. 

I don’t think Solas did anything comparable while they were both spirits. Wisdom/Pride would be, by its nature, more content to sit on the sidelines and observe. Quick note that while I do think their embodied concepts are integral to their natures, I also think that each spirit is an entirely unique and individual being; no other Wisdom/Pride is Solas, and Solas is like no other Wisdom/Pride. Same with Mythal. Same with every spirit! But the concepts that are attributed to them still go a long way towards defining their nature.

Because of this, Mythal has direct – not distant and academic – experience with suffering, of sitting with the victims, of seeing firsthand how consuming that pain is. And I think it is this experience which is part of why she took form in order to quell Elgar’nan, and why Solas originally did not.

The way I see it, she asked Solas to take form either to 1) help her with the Evanuris and with Elgar’nan, finding it difficult to stem his developing Tyranny on her own, or 2) to help her prevent the war with the Titans on the horizon, whether to develop the dagger that she already knew how to create but could not alone, or to work with her to develop the idea for a solution – the dagger – and then carry it out. It could also have been both!

Solas was important to her. He still is. And he worked with her for a time – how long is unclear, but given their immortality, I suspect a very long period of time – before eventually beginning his revolution. And the revolution is why I brought up Mythal’s firsthand experience with seeing suffering versus Solas’ more academic, dispassionate understanding of it. 

Her feelings about the enslavement of the Elvhen are unclear. But even if it had developed around her in such a way that she never questioned the morality of it, it is clear that Solas found it immoral and very, very likely they argued about it. Which contextualizes his approach to the subject with Dorian in Inquisition – he’s not only been anti-slavery for so long, but he’s specifically had these kinds of conversations before and has experience with navigating them. But I think the biggest difference in their goals was not that Mythal was secretly super corrupted (although I do think she became a certain amount of corrupted! Absolute power and all) or evil or careless or whatever else; I think it is that her underlying goal was to reduce suffering, and his underlying goal was to change a system.

Revolution and rebellion take an immense toll. People are wounded, killed, brutalized, made examples of. Certainly what we learn of the practice of slavery in Arlathan was fucked up; slaves were “spent” in the creation of “marvels”. They died in that situation, too. But Mythal’s approach – limiting Elgar’nan’s brutality, softening the edges of things, trying to make things better from the inside – was an approach that had less upheaval. At its simplest level, I see her approach as harm reduction, and Solas’ approach as a mass restructuring. Her approach is flawed because the harm won’t stop; the most she can do is limit its severity, and she cannot be everywhere at once. His approach is flawed because he is sitting there academically assessing the spending of lives in pursuit of an ultimate freedom and a sort of utopia. And this is a situation in which there is genuinely no good answer. Any approach will have flaws. But they struggled to tolerate the other’s point of view, and seemed to think that the other would eventually join them, which didn’t happen in either case.

Also, as much as I believe she was initially driven to leave the Fade in order to limit suffering – taking a very active approach in order to protect the Elvhen – while Solas was content to have a far more passive position, I think that, by the time he took form, she had become immersed in the situation. So she was now taking a more passive approach, trying to hold things together, while he was angry and rash and seething at the injustice, wanting to tear it all down and start again, a very active role.

It’s a fundamental issue of methodology. Mythal was now in a role of working within to limit damage, while Solas was working from the outside to abruptly change the whole system. 

But on top of that dissonance is the very human – so to speak – way that a complex relationship and complex history can influence people, often without them being consciously aware of it. Because I think that Solas was one of Mythal’s regrets, even then. She is not as bound to her regrets as he is to his, granted, but she would still be impacted by them, and I think it is not only that she asked him to take form and how that changed the spirit she knew into this man, but also what it reminded her of.

Solas is her connection to her past. An unburdened past, one free of these life-and-death, fate-of-the-world decisions that now plague her. She still associates him with the spirit he was and, by extension, the spirit she was, and I think being with him is like looking back on that past. A complex mixture of regret, despair, guilt, and yearning for a simpler time. And I think a lot – perhaps all – of this is occurring subconsciously, making their relationship with each other even more complex. Solas would have a different point of view, but this is more about Mythal and solythal than it is about Solas, so I’ll leave that for another time. Despite this yearning for a past that can never be again – because they are different now, yes, but also because they have responsibilities outside of themselves now, roles to play that will no longer permit the self-contained peace they once knew – I think that Mythal is less inclined towards reminiscence and nostalgia than Solas is, and is very fixed in the moment and looking towards the future.

I do think that Mythal became more corrupt the longer she was an Evanuris. Like she’s not guiltless here, no more than Solas is. But his commitment, his loyalty to her, is reflected by her loyalty to him. Because she is loyal to him. She was deeply wounded when he turned from her, but she–the lyrium dagger fragment–listens when Rook points out that maybe she was wrong, then. That the man who followed her everywhere saying no should have made her stop.

Like, they’re people. That’s a huge part of the story here; they aren’t some mystical force of pure precision and flawless intent. They were spirits, and they’re now people in some manner or other, and they’re a bit of both, and they’re flawed and corruptible and can make mistakes or not see things clearly because they’re hurting. Not talking about justifying what either of them did, just that Mythal being hurt by Solas turning from her and maybe not seeing the situation with perfect clarity is beyond natural.

I fully understand why people wouldn’t like Mythal. We first see her as Flemeth, and see the very, very complex and at times very harmful relationship she has with Morrigan. It’s natural to carry that perspective of her forward, but… she wasn’t always Flemythal. She was someone else before that, and it’s that someone else who features in Solas’ murals. Whether she was “better” or “worse” then is both subjective and debatable, but she was definitely different.

But also, at the core, their relationship is one of mutual trust, mutual respect, and mutual affection. And one of the most obvious examples of this–particularly the trust and respect–to me is the last mural. After the end of the base game Inquisition, Flemythal lets Solas take her power. He literally cannot force the issue, he’s too weak; and she has power near what she had so long ago. It would have taken the slightest effort for her to stop him.

But she doesn’t.

She trusted him when he told her about the Blight, even though she didn’t believe him. But she went to check for herself based on his word, and was killed for it. And this was after he rebelled, after she likely felt betrayed by him. And then so, so long after, she lets him take her power, that which she has built up piecemeal over all this time, even though she doesn’t fully agree with his goals. She even protests taking down the veil.

she is not, in this moment, his counsel, but his confidante. she listens and she hears. and he recounts it in full; at times he cries, at times he's angry, at times he's laughing, they're both laughing, deeply charmed by some aspect of nessa and solas' history together

mythal is his friend. she is there for him when he needs her

when daw dies, the same thing. when revas dies... that's probably the hardest for him, but that's also what mythal understands best, in a way. through flemeth

and he discusses all his important connections with her, not just lovers and child/children. friends that he has made, and friends he will make. because... he's going to live. he will meet new people, and he will come to care for them. he will be with them until they are gone, and he will endure after, as he always has and always will

but when he endures, he seeks out mythal

he has other children. it does not happen with everyone, but it does happen. perhaps he has a whole lineage he can watch grow, perhaps not. he meets new people. finds new friends. new loves. life continues, and he continues with it

and he is there for mythal in exactly the same way. when morrigan ages, when mythal seeks another host, and when mythal - the woman who was held in flemeth, who was flemythal, and then who was morrithal, hosted by morrigan - mourns her daughter-host, he will be there for her. in the same way she helps him mourn each of his losses, he helps her mourn hers. and he helps her new host acclimate to the weight of her; and, very likely, to the loss of her previous host, as it seems to be unusual that the new host has no relationship to the prior host

perhaps kieran will be next. perhaps someone else entirely, someone else morrigan/morrithal meets. whoever it is, solas will be there to help mythal and the new host mourn the old

and when someone who is not the host but in their life passes, solas will be there for them just the same. when leliana dies, they will each mourn her

their relationship is one strewn throughout the centuries, the millennia. they ebb and flow, but always draw together in their grief, an anchor... and the only one who truly, truly understands what it is to live with these myriad, endless losses. what it means to choose to care for people knowing they are fleeting, compared to you. what it means to leave yourself vulnerable, horribly vulnerable, to endless grief... but also to such joys, such beauty, such wonder. to value that which frightens you