Okay, so just finished my first Solas "Trespasser" romance playthrough and AGHGHGGHHGHG. (Please also feel free to interpret this as WAHHHHHH!)
"Trespasser" is just so much more meaningful -- and honestly, the entire DAI storyline is -- when the heroine is involved with Solas and invested in him. You learn so much more about Solas as a person, he's even more complex than he is with a high-approval friendship, and the romance is really lush, tragic, sensual, and gorgeously done.
What I love the most is that I started the game and didn't find Solas attractive, exactly. Not unattractive, just not my type (although, that voice and those eyes definitely had me intrigued).
But the more my character flirted with him, and how he responded, I was already head over heels before we ever left Haven. I remember the flirtation where she says, "You didn't answer my question," and teases him, and he responds, smiling, then adds, "And you didn't answer my question, either," and that was it for me. I loved the way he handled that -- I'd kind of expected him to be shy, but he was always so confident and quietly witty in their conversations, and that was even better. And then of course: best kisses in the game. Holy cats.
Then their romance proceeded with all of its beauty and (ultimate) emotional brutality (with several early sweet key save points safely ensconced on my computer, hee), and just -- wow. What I loved about "Trespasser" isn't just the sweeping romance and bittersweet understanding it offered, but most of all, that it felt emotionally earned. As I'm sure for all of us, it just felt so personal. My own Lavellan had spent the whole journey desperately following his trail, putting the pieces together, not being a doormat about being dumped, but not being able to get past it, either.
So the final scenes between them I found really beautiful, nuanced, and offering a host of really intriguing possibilities for character play and interpretation. There is a palpable love between them still, and especially in Solas for her (which I found unexpected and lovely). I especially love that there's this tremble in his voice when he tells her who he is -- this hesitance -- that he's the Dread Wolf -- and waits for her response (Gareth David-Lloyd is BRILLIANT throughout of course). Little moments like that. And that he isn't pretending coldness anymore (the final chapter of DAI before Corypheus was so brutal -- Solas so cold and calling her "Inquisitor," aghgghhghg, it broke my heart). He is able to express everything now with total honesty, good and bad and in between.
And I admit it, after chasing after him for another dozen hours or so, when she goes through the mirror, and we hear his voice speaking to the Viddasala, that beautiful voice, I just fell all over myself. I'd missed that voice so much since ending DAI. And again -- performance-wise -- there's this new strength and command to him, whether good or evil (both very arguable) that, combined with the new armor (Addictress, exactly!)? He walked up to my Inquisitor and again, my only coherent thought was basically, Woof. I was torn between having my Inquisitor yell at him or to challenge him to show her how quickly he could get that armor off. I mean, sheesh.
Meanwhile, I found the entire play of "Trespasser" surprisingly moving, and I was most delighted that so many companions actually referenced Solas leaving, and their worry and affection for you. The one that moved me most was -- surprisingly -- Sera. I weirdly had fabulous approval with Sera on this character, despite her being the elfiest-elf ever, but she also adored Sera and let her have her thoughts without arguing them (she chose her battles -- no point to yell at her for believing differently), so for the first time I'd been able to have the rooftop time with Sera, etc. And in Trespasser, Sera's frantic increasing worry and palpable love for the Inquisitor really got to me. She expresses her sorrow at Solas breaking her heart, and as the Inquisitor begins to show signs that the Mark will kill her, Sera is just frantic, and in the final dash and battles, just frantic to save her and it's so sweet, going, "Solas will help. He owes us, yeah? He has to help. He loves you. He has to help," and I just found that so moving in so many ways, not least because Solas is probably the person Sera hates most. But anything for her friend.
So -- I loved it. I was profoundly moved by it. I have a lot of thinking to do about Solas's character and actions and motivations, but I am at the moment very definitely on the side of redeeming him and helping him to find another way. He has already shown he was blind and wrong before (I loved the description of the world he awoke to feeling like "everyone was Tranquil," like everything was flat and dead and muted. Turned away by the Dalish, treated with suspicion, trying to reacclimate while filled with guilt and still coming to terms with survival; I can imagine what a nightmare it was to him (and his people scattered and subjugated, to boot). No wonder he fled to his dreams so willingly. It -- to me -- makes his growing affection for the Inquisition that much sadder. He grew to love them. All of them.
And I think he still does. I know he thinks he hardened his heart (it's key that he told Cole he "once cared for him") but I definitely still hope for communication, clarity and redemption.
And yeah. Soaring music (those final themes are so gorgeous). Tragic final kisses. Dread Wolf dreams always at a distance. There may have been tears.
Thanks for your thoughtful explanation, so it sounds that a "spirit of wisdom" is really more a designation than an actual identity, while in some unique cases, a spirit might actually be "special" enough to develop its own identity, and therefore earning and choosing for itself a name, like Cole, and probably Solas too. So I wonder if it was to highlight this difference that Bioware did not bother to name any other spirits - not even Solas' friend in All New, Faded for Her.
Ok, having looked at it in that way, I think I can finally reconcile my perception of Solas with theories of him having once been a spirit of wisdom 
I think this is such an intriguing idea, but I don't think it fits. Solas even says in one of the final dialogue options in "Trespasser," (when she asks "are you like Mythal?") he says, "No. I have always been what I am." He always speaks of himself as "Solas first." It would actually lessen the story for me if he were somehow dehumanized -- I prefer the explanation that he took an action that ended up saving yet damning his people as the person we see now.
Poor poor Tala..it has begun. 
ALL THE FEELS! I know! (sobs)
Screenshots are so easy to go overboard with but I love taking so many. It means I get a lot of laggy ones with weird faces, but some nice ones too.
I love the screenshots. In the best sense, they almost become this comic book or series of snapshots of some of the best moments. And of course I have lots of derpy faces of my Quizzies too. Especially on this one, Perionnan, who romanced Solas, I kept catching her in mind-blink EVERY TIME. So funny.
And aside from everything it was said then, reaching of the Black City is painted to be such a tremendously important event both in past and possible future, that a near-casual stroll through it, without anyone even noticing something tremendously off or unusual about that portion of the Fade just seems very unlikely to me.
I would agree that what we saw was just more general Fade, versus the Black City. Unless we got some kind of echo of the Black City (certainly not Arlathan, although that would've been amazing) due to the Flemeth/Mythal-ness of the setting.
Meanwhile, I may or may not need to leave now to replay a certain final scene just... one... more... time. (facepalm)
Thank you for listening as always. I would now like fluffy pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, hot tea (oh stuff it, Solas), and kittens. And cake. Or cookies. Or both.
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