With the bad news about Bowie this morning I was having a pretty miserable day. This helped immeasurably. Thank you. 
Also, I was reading through the last couple pages of posts. I have to say, I'm not personally keen on Solas and Mythal as an "item." I can conveniently find other explanations for evidence that might support their romantic entanglement...for the most part. Some of it is pretty hard to ignore though, especially Solas' flying off the handle with the Evanuris killed Mythal and the whole Andraste is Mythal and Solas is Shartan and Shartan and Andraste were lovers thing (as Thedas religions are the different versions of the same story). I wonder if anyone has picked apart the theory that Solas is actually Elgar'nan. Solas did sort of destroy the world, and his magic possibly turns people to ash as Elgar'nan's did. Also, originally a power amulet for Solas was located in front of the Bastion of Elgar'nan. Certainly Elgar'nan's connection to vengeance doesn't totally fit. You all are much more up on lore and The World of Thedas than I am. Thoughts?
As far the dragon and wolf statues appearing together so often...I'm inclined to think of at least some of the wolf statues we see are not specifically Solas. The elvhen venerated wolves (see things like A Plea from a Warrior to the Spirits & The Knight's Guardian codex entries) as Fereldans do mabari. Not all mabari statues in Thedas are Andraste's dog, are they? Perhaps Mythal's servants/soldiers were referred to as or symbolized by wolves? Thoughts?
I would ordinarily say "impossible," but really... anything is possible at this point. In fact just before I read someone else say so, I happened to think that, "You know what? Andruil and Ghilan'ain could very well have been the same person." If not the same person, then they could, like Dirthamen and Falon'din, have shared a spirit (or been the same spirit, sundered). We tend to see Andruil as the hunter, and Ghilan'ain as the prey (the halla) but Ghilan'ain was doing some hunting herself, to get subjects for her freaky experiments. Those experiments likewise seem to be exactly the kind of thing that might have led to red lyrium armor, or Void armor, which we know that Andruil wore.
Minor digression: I do wonder if maybe the griffons were one of Ghilan'ain's experiments; however, the quillbacks and some other animals that may or may not be related to dragons share some traits that griffons have. Like six limbs and feathers. So while maybe Ghilan'ain made griffons as "prettier quillbacks" or something, they could very well just be natural creatures.
Back to the subject at hand: I don't really think Solas is Elgar'nan, but he is represented with an orb quite frequently. That could be a sign of Mythal's influence (the moon is always over the wolf?) or it could represent the sun, thus indicating he's Elgar'nan, or a fragment of Elgar'nan.
There's actually a quote that could even support this, from Cole. It seems to refer to Star Wars: KotOR, but it could also refer to Elgar'nan. It went something like, "She made him forget so that they could be allies." Would the writers use that plot line in two different franchises though? And yet... She calmed Elgar'nan with a hand to his brow. Vallaslin? And Solas "burned" her away and left his forehead scar. Even if he is not Elgar'nan, he could be the spirit remnant of a now-dead Elgar'nan. Mythal does seem to have an interest in the preservation of all things mystical. Spirits are likely included.
I don't really believe he IS Elgar'nan, but if you dig enough you can probably find some evidence to support anything.
What's more likely is that they were all their own people, although they were likely drawn to similar personalities. Justice to vengeance (although there is some evidence, which was cut, that Mythal was always Vengeance--perhaps more tempered in personality than Elgar'nan, but then we have learned that even though spirits embody an emotion or idea they all have their own personalities and can feel a full gamut of emotions), Hunter to Hunted, Sun to Moon, Secrets to Death (which keeps all secrets).
The biggest evidence that they were individuals, after all? They all had their own separate portrayals. Not just symbols, but different mosaics. I think if they'd turned into other people, or spent part of the time as someone else, that duality would be portrayed within the same mosaic, or it would be tiled over and we'd see that the original was not the same as the new one.
And it's interesting, to me, that Solas is always portrayed as a wolf, except in his own artwork. It sets him apart from the others; it makes it clear that he's not their kin.
I think when we see elven wolf statues, other than the Emerald Graves guardian wolves, they're usually meant to be Solas. It stands to reason that guardian wolves might have been an idea begun by Mythal. But that would imply that Solas was originally given form as a wolf, in some way. I remember in the past I mentioned that he could very well be, or rather have been, a Greater Pride Demon. Ordinary pride demons have a sort of beastly look; maybe Solas was basically a monstrous wolf in that form. Ameridan is known to have fought something similar--and it could have even been Solas himself. We don't know.
No, it stands to reason that the reason Mythal is always portrayed with Solas is because they were so closely associated no one could imagine picturing one without the other nearby. Maybe he was simply her bodyguard; if that's the case, she may have had more than one. If so, I'd just about bet that after she lost Solas as a protector, Abelas was the next in line to be Mythal's wolf. Just as Solas failed her, so did Abelas.
There used to be some discussion about the white vs. black wolf iconography, but if you look closely at the statues, the darker wolves appear to have been burnt by some sort of energy. So Solas is a grey wolf, or a white wolf, who has the chance of being a Big Bad Monster Greater Pride Wolf, depending on how you perceive him and how you treated him. He did repeatedly tell you that a spirit's nature was dependent upon how you perceived it, right? So if you expect to see Nice Fluffy Solas, you'll get Nice FLuffy Solas. If you're expecting Evil Fen'harel Solas, you get Scary Greater Pride Demon Wolf Solas. ... Makes sense to me anyway. Spirits are like quantum particles; they exist in an indeterminate state until they are observed. Or something.
Regarding wolves and mabari, though... there is something very interesting to be noted about mabari, and that is they are known to be bred from wolves. We modern people know all dogs are basically wolves, but the people of Thedas don't, and Fereldans take particular pride in the fact that their mabari were bred from Dane's wolves. Yeah... wolves again. And where did he get those wolves? Could they have been given by, or taken from, elves? Guardian wolves could have been semidomesticated, or fully domesticated, already, or maybe there's just something about elves that meshes with wolves in a way that humans can't.
So it's also interesting that supposedly mabari (or any dog owned by the Dalish) are said to keep Fen'harel away.
Back to Elgar'nan, because I had a thought about him that you might appreciate.
Flemeth/Mythal is all about vengeance, and she appears to have been plotting that vengeance for a very, very long time. You can debate that if you want, but she outright says she has plans for a "reckoning that will shake the very foundations of Thedas." She tells us that she was betrayed, Flemeth was betrayed... and the entire world was betrayed.
Now I'm not going to pretend that her visit to the Deep Roads, and popping up her iconography there, was somehow a benevolent move, but it was not necessarily hostile.
Someone pointed out the Elgar'nan codex entry last night, and how Elgar'nan basically was trying to go too close to the earth etc. and burning everything up, or too far away and leaving everyone in night. I don't remember 100% the details. Yes, I've read the codex entry in game, more than once even. But it's been a while.
What I'm getting at is: Many of the stories from the Dalish, and even from the ancient elves, seem to be couched at least partly in allegory. If we look at it from that angle, it sounds a lot like Elgar'nan was busy doing things he shouldn't do to the Titans, which may be why the Titans later decided to cause trouble for the elves. That would have led to Mythal (and by extension, Solas) having to stop Elgar'nan and possibly battle the angered Titans (having no real chance of diplomacy at that point).
It's also entirely possible that Elgar'nan did what he did because whatever Mythal was up to with the dwarves and Titans (peaceful or not) threatened the power balance, and he decided to sabotage her efforts.
Either way, it looks like it ended up with dead Titans as the result. And, either because of something Elgar'nan did, or because of the dead Titan(s) decaying and possibly the Fade somehow mingling with that decay, we ended up with the Blight. Remember that although the Blight acts like a disease, it's also described as containing every negative emotion ever. Sounds a lot like a really nasty demon from the Fade, right?
I said last night that Mythal could have created the Blight in vengeance for whatever she thought betrayed the world. Well, she still could have, but it could also be that the Blight is part of what she feels was the world's betrayal... by Elgar'nan. That would explain why she doesn't just order the Blight to go away, why she fears it in DA:O. Either that, or because she isn't whole, it's simply no longer entirely under her command. Again, he features into only limited stories, so we don't really know much about him or what he may or may not have done. But it sounded a lot like Mythal forced him to go to sleep for good, or put him under a geas somehow to make him be a good boy. If that's the case, then, well... it's increasingly clear that Mythal was gaining more power over all the other evanuris than they were comfortable with. She'd quelled Andruil, she'd banished Falon'din to the Fade, she'd done SOMETHING to Elgar'nan. Though it's not entirely clear that Andruil and Ghilan'ain were closely allied, there are hints--so they banded together against her. But I think Dirthamen spearheaded the efforts due to what happened to Falon'din. June probably had a place in this conflict, too, but we don't know much about that yet (I'm sure we will, eventually).
In the end, no one comes out looking rosy. Mythal might have been the "best," or at least the most reasonable, of the evanuris, but it seems like most of the rulers in the Fade are on the demon end of the spirit-demon spectrum. That's probably reflected in the evanuris' personalities as well, and might even be how they came to power. While Mythal's presence in the Deep Roads could have been innocuous, or even a diplomatic measure (like putting up an embassy), most assume she was simply there to take advantage of the lyrium--which seems entirely likely.
Ahem. Sorry for the lengthy post. I probably have more thoughts on this but I've said more than enough already for just one post.
Retour en haut
Thanks for bringing the Inquisitor/Solas relationship into the conversation too. Yes, another complicated and, some might argue, unbalanced relationship.
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I'm confused.
