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[Siha]

Was his killing the mages a matter of ruthlessness though? Isn't ruthlessness about the ends justifying the means? But there's no end here. Only vengeance.
 
And vengeance I get. I relished Howe's demise.

I am not quite sure what you are trying to tell me. That an academic "Sacrifices are necessary to right previous wrongs" is worse than an emotional "I want to see you dead for a mistake you made"? I consider vengeance even lower, I assume.
Besides, I also find vengeance ruthless, yes, but however. That's pure terminology and I am very sure you did understand my idea, whatever word I used.

[DraconisWolf]

I usually stay away from topics like this , so I don't say something that offend or hurt someone. But I have to say this. Him killing these mages is straight up murder ,IMO. He does like to dispense justice as he sees fit, but these mages...he looked straight at them and killed them. I doesn't feel right. They didn't summon the spirit to torture information out of her, or to do some sinister ritual. They needed protection. They were ignorant , true, but they didn't deserve to be murdered.

Killing Howe is another story . His intent was evil, born of greed and jealousy, he was a horrible person,a traitor and a killer. Vengeance upon him was justified. 

[Rabbitonfire]

Ok all this talk made me curious. So I drew up a test. No right or wrong answer, of course. Just what you value the most. Please ignore the train distance, it's actually not as close as it seems.

 

You are placed in a situation where you have to decide which direction the train should go with the pull of a lever. One the left are a group of people you have no connection to. Strangers. On the right, is the person that you love the most. Would you switch the lever to save your loved one or save people that you don't know? 

Spoiler

 

 

edit: this isn't a solas thing. This is a psychological thing. 

[flabbadence]

He does seem to acknowledge his prejudices, and he does seem open to the idea that perhaps he was wrong, but he doesn't seem entirely convinced, considering keeps going on about how you are different.

If you ask about the other companions in that scene, he says "Cassandra separates matters of faith from those of the world, and she above all should understand how limited that is. Leliana has a brilliant mind, but her faith was damaged. To her, it is all a game of tactics now.
But not you."

He's getting there. I can understand why some people don't like him.

 

Which still doesn't make him racist, but I do get that can still sound like a backhanded compliment.

[phaonica]

All of this Good Solas, Bad Solas debate is making me nervous.
 
Question for you guys.   >w<   Just hypothetically.
 
If you discovered that Solas was directly responsible for Corypheus's dreams of the Dark City, and had lured him there purposefully to ensure the release of his physical side (Dirthamen = Dumat) so that he could once again try to fix the mess of his earlier rebellion and eventually hopefully address the Blight before it inevitably took over the world...  would you love him, even then?   Knowing how much blood was on his hands?  Understanding that -to him- there simply was no other way?

I don't know. I'd need more details to know what my Lavellan would do, so that I could determine if in her perspective, the goal is worth the sacrifice. I'd want to know exactly what he was trying to fix.

[Avejajed]

I like Solas a little bad. 

 

Maybe that's an unpopular opinion,  (actually I know it will be here, as many people there are in this thread who think "dom" Solas is the most awful-ist of awful things) but I think ruthless, powerful Solas is pretty hot.

 

He wants what he wants, and he's willing to do whatever it takes do achieve this goal. He finds the goal worthy, even if I do not. There is something wildly attractive about that.

[tsunamitigerdragon]

. 

[DrTeatime]

Omg people, stop making me laugh like this on my train trip back home from work! I have a bad reputation already XD

Don't mind me..

[flabbadence]

I am not quite sure what you are trying to tell me. That an academic "Sacrifices are necessary to right previous wrongs" is worse than an emotional "I want to see you dead for a mistake you made"? I consider vengeance even lower, I assume.
Besides, I also find vengeance ruthless, yes, but however. That's pure terminology and I am very sure you did understand my idea, whatever word I used.

 

I thought you were asking whether we thought what he did was ok. And I just said I did, because while I don't always approve of vengeance (Anders), in some cases, I can accept it. Sorry if it turned out sounding weird.

[Illyria]

Why exactly does it not make sense that he might be just the vessel?
And how does he look different from modern elves?
Don't get me wrong, I do not mean to attack. In fact, I have no opinion on this matter anymore, he could or could not be the "original body of Fen'harel". I just do not see how one of both makes "no sense", when I see no argument fully refuting one of both theories.
And he looks like an elf to me, so I'm really curious.

 

Put Solas next to any other non-ancient male elf and he is taller with broader shoulders.  Abelas is also quite a bit bigger than modern elves.

 

And I guess... I just like him better when Solas is Solas.  There's no conflicting spirits in there.  No Anders/Justice or Flemeth/Mythal thing going on.  He's just Solas.  It means that everything he's gone through from being a young mage who set off to see the world to becoming a god to become a rebel leader to becoming Solas is all him.

[madrar]

How many people allowed Solas to kill the mages? Or even continued the relationship? That should have been the point to turn away from him if ruthlessness was to be an issue. He was willing to kill. For no reason other than anger. That's a trait of character. If you kill 5 or 5000 people does not really make too much of a difference anymore, I think. Especially since the mages-killing was very close up (seeing their faces, their fear, their helplessness, and knowing of their ignorance), while the conclave was neither planned nor anything personal. "3000 people died in a plane crash" surely is bad if you were the one not checking the engine correctly, but not as emotional as killing one person you can look into the eye while doing it.

 

But it wasn't just anger, not... simply anger, at least.  It was injustice, in that case.  

 

Preserving the balance of Order and Chaos that makes free will possible requires death.  Sometimes the only people who have to die are unarguably Bad Guys. Sometimes, though, innocents have to die so others have the chance to live.  It's the trolley problem- the necessary consequences of absolute pragmatism: the end justifying a means that is in itself always morally Good, morally Right.  

 

There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options:

 

(1) Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track.

(2) Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

 

Which is the correct choice?

 

This is an imperfect mapping, of course, since in DA Universe/Solas/Blight terms, making the "wrong" choice would mean sacrificing the ability of the Individual to ever choose again.  It highlights the basic idea, though: the idea of "necessary" deaths, and their weight on his character.

[TanithAeyrs]

You hit the nail on the head with your train question Rabbitonfire.  Back to Dickens and "do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one?"  Pretty sure Solas would answer this the same way Spock did in most situations, however, in the emotional moment -who knows.  Remember Dragon Age is ultimately themed on "human" frailty.

[Rabbitonfire]

There's too many posts that I want to like but ran out of likes for the day.

[TanithAeyrs]

LOL, Solas thread tends to take all my likes to;)

[Avejajed]

Ok all this talk made me curious. So I drew up a test. No right or wrong answer, of course. Just what you value the most. Please ignore the train distance, it's actually not as close as it seems.

 

You are placed in a situation where you have to decide which direction the train should go with the pull of a lever. One the left are a group of people you have no connection to. Strangers. On the right, is the person that you love the most. Would you switch the lever to save your loved one or save people that you don't know? 

Spoiler

 

 

edit: this isn't a solas thing. This is a psychological thing. 

 

Your drawing skills are on point.

 

Also: I'd save the person on the right. Every time.

[Oswin]

I let him kill those mages because that guy's face really annoyed me.

 

So the whole 'bad' Solas thing doesn't bother me all that much, because I know, deep down in my heart...

 

That I am always going to be way way worse than him.

 

 

oh come on, that mage was annoying. He totally deserved it. I'm not that much of a sociopath. Honest.

[flabbadence]

 

I usually stay away from topics like this , so I don't say something that offend or hurt someone. But I have to say this. Him killing these mages is straight up murder ,IMO. He does like to dispense justice as he sees fit, but these mages...he looked straight at them and killed them. I doesn't feel right. They didn't summon the spirit to torture information out of her, or to do some sinister ritual. They needed protection. They were ignorant , true, but they didn't deserve to be murdered.

Killing Howe is another story . His intent was evil, born of greed and jealousy, he was a horrible person,a traitor and a killer. Vengeance upon him was justified. 

 

 

I'm not really saying Solas should kill the mages. Just that I don't see why it isn't justifiable if he does. If my sister, for example, had superpowers, and a band of terrified, desperate people decided to lock her up and torture her, change her into something she isn't to protect them, even if they were ignorant I would be hardpressed to find an excuse for their actions.

 

Edit: Wow, how cool would it be if my sister had superpowers though?

[Illyria]

Ok all this talk made me curious. So I drew up a test. No right or wrong answer, of course. Just what you value the most. Please ignore the train distance, it's actually not as close as it seems.

 

You are placed in a situation where you have to decide which direction the train should go with the pull of a lever. One the left are a group of people you have no connection to. Strangers. On the right, is the person that you love the most. Would you switch the lever to save your loved one or save people that you don't know? 

Spoiler

 

 

edit: this isn't a solas thing. This is a psychological thing. 

 

I'd look for the breaks.

[Patchwork]

Anders has never made it out of DA2 alive, somethings are just too horrible and people have to answer for their actions.If he gave the orb to Cory knowing the death and destruction that would follow then my Lavellan wouldn't be able to let him get away with it. If he plans to hurt people to achieve what he sees as the greater good then she has to stop him even if it means killing the man she loves. 

 

If he's goes to those extremes he's not the man she thought he was anyway. 

 

Lashing out in grief filled anger is different from deliberately setting out to kill people to achieve a goal. 

[LliiraAnna]

Well, even if Solas seems to be mostly rational, it looks like he's often driven by emotions to me. People are known to do horrible things when grief/anger/etc. overcomes them. They usually regret it later, though. 

 

This may even be a reason for his "ends justify the means" behaviour: he's so passionate about his ideas that he's willing to get his hands bloody (and overlook any negative sides of his plans). But, as Hawke says, when you try to change things, they do change - and not necessarily in a way you want them to. So, Solas realizes he made a mistake, and then he's so passionate about trying to "set things right" that he commits the same mistake again.

 

...someone needs to convince him that things can - and will - never be perfect and break him out of this circle. 

[phaonica]

Ok all this talk made me curious. So I drew up a test. No right or wrong answer, of course. Just what you value the most. Please ignore the train distance, it's actually not as close as it seems.
 
You are placed in a situation where you have to decide which direction the train should go with the pull of a lever. One the left are a group of people you have no connection to. Strangers. On the right, is the person that you love the most. Would you switch the lever to save your loved one or save people that you don't know? 

Spoiler

 
edit: this isn't a solas thing. This is a psychological thing. 

With no other context, I'd say I'd save the loved one.
In Dragon Age, there's usually more context, though.

[slmisfit]

At the risk of sounding too much of a Solas apologist, let's think about this from his perspective for a second.

 

For thousands of years, he lived in a purely elven society. Then that all went to **** and he went to sleep, and when he woke up, suddenly, elves are at the bottom of the pecking order, and all these races he's only heard about through stories (and not very flattering ones either) are ruling over the world. He tries to connect with other elves, but they reject him.

 

He thinks the world's gone into even worse ****, and starts to go about correcting his mistake (Or maybe he wants to counteract an incoming disaster? Still don't know). He makes another mistake, and he's forced to team up with the Inquisition, which is probably the first time he's ever had close prolonged interactions with dwarves, qunari, and humans. And at first, as expected of someone who's only heard unflattering tales about other races, he's really judgmental.

 

But as time wears on, he begins to see, primarily because of the Inquisitor but also because of the other companions, that his prejudices were in fact prejudices only, and that balcony scene is him acknowledging that.

 

So yes, you can argue that he's racist. I don't think so however, because he doesn't hold up any one race as superior to the other. He's just telling you what he thought of you, and how you've changed his point of view.

I wasn't calling him, specifically, racist. I was saying the, "You're not like -insert something here-!" line (that actual people use, very frequently) is pretty racist/sexist. 

 

Also, Solas's point of view doesn't seem to be changed at all during that scene...? It felt pretty, "You're an exception, everyone else is still -insert prejudiced views here-." to me. I'm gonna be replaying his romance again soon... maybe it'll feel different this time.

 

(I've found that most real-life examples of the "You're not like -insert something here-!" line is usually just a way for someone to say they think an individual is the sole exception to their racist or sexist views. "You're not like other women! Other women are -insert derogatory crap here-, but you're totally not!" etc.)

 

BUT ANYWAY... I wasn't looking spark a fight and/or heated debate over how racist/prejudiced Solas is or isn't, so I'm gonna bow out of this particular conversation now (especially since I'm already getting a headache just thinking about it). I'll leave you all with a nice Solas screenshot I got earlier today:

 

EDIT: I swear to god I hate making posts on this forum sometimes. I CAN'T GET RID OF THAT FIRST QUOTE THAT ISN'T A QUOTE.

[madrar]

Seeing as I don't believe Solas to be Dirthamen and thereby not Dumat - I think I'm good. Even if Dirthamen were Dumat, which I doubt (the likelyhood of it being Mythal is simply too high given the birth date of Andraste and the Children of Andraste Codex entry) it still doesn't affect Solas.

BUT even if he were responsible for Corypheus' dreams of the Dark City, lured him, there etc... I find that highly unlikely. Why? Because the rituals that Corpheus used at the behest of Dumat involved Elven slaves. If we know ANYTHING about Solas it's that he hates the binding of free will and the institution of slavery with every fiber of his being. It would be game-breakingly out of character for him to push anyone in the ritualistic murder of thousands of slaves whose souls don't have the luxury of reforming in the fade. They're gone. If he rage-quitted the lives of three mages over the binding of a spirit - not one of the People - I can't imagine what he'd do to a megalomaniac magister who offered up the lives of powerless individuals in bondage. In the discussion the Inquisitor has with Solas in Haven about blood magic and its usage, he goes out of his way to condemn the way in which it is wielded by Tevinter and the usage of unwilling sacrifices. 

 

I definitely side with his giving the orb to Corypheus when he awakens as an act of desperation, likely one he made as a split-second decision after waking up and finding everything to have gone the opposite direction he had intended. What likely happened is that Corypheus was doing what he was doing in DA:I - exhuming elven ruins, looking for power and clues, and he stumbles upon a newly-awakened, very weak Fen'Harel who is desperate and not thinking clearly.

 

While I respect your right to hold that perspective and don't meant to push too hard, keep in mind that Falon'Din was still free at this point- the "souls" of the slaves, though sacrificed, were still preserved in essence.  It was a tremendous sacrifice, but in realistic, pragmatic terms, it would have been the only way to free his physical OGS to regain any hope of salvaging the larger population, as well as find a solution for the blight itself before it (inevitably) leaked out into the world unopposed.    

[flabbadence]

Ok all this talk made me curious. So I drew up a test. No right or wrong answer, of course. Just what you value the most. Please ignore the train distance, it's actually not as close as it seems.

 

You are placed in a situation where you have to decide which direction the train should go with the pull of a lever. One the left are a group of people you have no connection to. Strangers. On the right, is the person that you love the most. Would you switch the lever to save your loved one or save people that you don't know? 

Spoiler

 

 

edit: this isn't a solas thing. This is a psychological thing. 

 

It depends. Is there someone really important on the strangers side? Like a president maybe, or a leading innovator? Are there kids there? Or are they full of senior citizens? Is my beloved yelling at me to save the strangers instead? It all really depends.

[Rabbitonfire]

You hit the nail on the head with your train question Rabbitonfire.  Back to Dickens and "do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one?"  Pretty sure Solas would answer this the same way Spock did in most situations, however, in the emotional moment -who knows.  Remember Dragon Age is ultimately themed on "human" frailty.

That's what worries me. When not placed in the situation on the spot, I would stay my opinion very clearly. But if placed in the situation, would I go against my morals? 

 

I placed spoiler tag since the picture might invoke distress of people in danger.