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[phishface]

It's clear (again from a banter with Cole) that he was horrified to realize Callier's children were with him, and it sounds like in the moment he just froze, unable to process the situation he'd put himself and his men in.

 

I see. He must have been fighting back the tears as he slaughtered the children, their parents and the servants. Do you think he killed the children in front of their parents, or the parents in front of their children? Either way, poor thing, being all horrified and unable to process the situation. Of course, he didn't 'just freeze' enough to actually stop killing people, but hey, once you've started murdering it must be so difficult to stop.

 

Still, at least he owned up to it. Sure, it was after a few years. And after he let several of his men be executed. But a bit of voluntary community service and regret makes it all ok.

 

Anyway, one thing's for sure: they wrote a great character, as evidenced by these strong and diverging opinions.

[maia0407]

I see. He must have been fighting back the tears as he slaughtered the children, their parents and the servants. Do you think he killed the children in front of their parents, or the parents in front of their children? Either way, poor thing, being all horrified and unable to process the situation. Of course, he didn't 'just freeze' enough to actually stop killing people, but hey, once you've started murdering it must be so difficult to stop.

 

Still, at least he owned up to it. Sure, it was after a few years. And after he let several of his men be executed. But a bit of voluntary community service and regret makes it all ok.

 

Anyway, one thing's for sure: they wrote a great character, as evidenced by these strong and diverging opinions.

I just can't with Blackwall. His actions are just too horrible for my Inquisitor to ever look at him as a friend and as someone to be trusted. I don't kill him but my canon sends him to the wardens.

 

I do struggle with the fact that I like Solas and hope to redeem him, though. Is that hypocritical? I don't know. I think that Solas' original actions, putting up the veil, were justifiable in that he took the only course of action available to him to prevent the destruction of the world. I'm reserving final judgement on his intent with his current plans as we just don't know enough about why he is doing what he is doing. I still hold out hope that he's trying to prevent another catastrophe and acting on his only available options. Intent maters a lot with me; but, if his plans are simply about restoring his world and not working to save a world about to be destroyed, he'll go in the Blackwall bin of evil.

[Mlady]

Blackwall did one wrong thing. Horrible as it was, it was only once. He's not a murderer who kills all the time. He made a huge mistake and spent years making up for it and 2 years owning up to it. Now he travels around helping people. Solas however knows what he's done is wrong and is still going to kill countless people for his own personal desires. If anyone can redeem Solas, forgiving Blackwall should be even easier.

[maia0407]

Blackwall did one wrong thing. Horrible as it was, it was only once. He's not a murderer who kills all the time. He made a huge mistake and spent years making up for it and 2 years owning up to it. Now he travels around helping people. Solas however knows what he's done is wrong and is still going to kill countless people for his own personal desires. If anyone can redeem Solas, forgiving Blackwall should be even easier.

I get where you are coming from but my whole issue with Blackwall vs Solas involves intent. With Solas, his intent in putting up the veil was to prevent the Evanuris from destroying the world. He didn't really have any other option. Whatever the outcome, it's better than the world being destroyed. His intentions were good and not motivated by greed or power or anything like that.

 

Regarding his current plans, we really don't know if this is another save the world is situation or not. He says that he's making the best choice among all the bad choices. If he is trying to prevent another catastrophe and he believes his plan is the only way to save something then I hope to find another way to prevent the catastrophe. But, if his intent is really only to save his people at the expense of our world, then I hope to change his mind before he follows through with his plans. If, in the end, he's really only about saving his people and I can't change his mind, I will let go of any hope that he is a good person and be done with him. Again, my feelings about what he plans to do all revolve around his intentions and whether or not his mind can be changed.

 

With Blackwall, his motivation for killing those people was greed. That's it. He wasn't trying to prevent a catastrophe; he was the catastrophe. Cole even remarks that he heard the children singing in the carriage. He knew they were there before the slaughter happened. It's just disgusting and I can't look at him in the same way. The fact that he let his men take the fall for his decisions also makes me hate him. Like I said, I don't kill him so he has every option to redeem himself. I just don't extend friendship to him.

[themikefest]

I would like it if he was taken in the fade, he would volunteer to stay behind instead of one of the Wardens or Hawke.

 

Another option would be to make him a jester if the Inquisitor has him released from jail

[Mlady]

I get where you are coming from but my whole issue with Blackwall vs Solas involves intent. With Solas, his intent in putting up the veil was to prevent the Evanuris from destroying the world. He didn't really have any other option. Whatever the outcome, it's better than the world being destroyed. His intentions were good and not motivated by greed or power or anything like that.

 

Regarding his current plans, we really don't know if this is another save the world is situation or not. He says that he's making the best choice among all the bad choices. If he is trying to prevent another catastrophe and he believes his plan is the only way to save something then I hope to find another way to prevent the catastrophe. But, if his intent is really only to save his people at the expense of our world, then I hope to change his mind before he follows through with his plans. If, in the end, he's really only about saving his people and I can't change his mind, I will let go of any hope that he is a good person and be done with him. Again, my feelings about what he plans to do all revolve around his intentions and whether or not his mind can be changed.

 

With Blackwall, his motivation for killing those people was greed. That's it. He wasn't trying to prevent a catastrophe; he was the catastrophe. Cole even remarks that he heard the children singing in the carriage. He knew they were there before the slaughter happened. It's just disgusting and I can't look at him in the same way. Like I said, I don't kill him so he has every option to redeem himself. I just don't extend friendship to him.

 

I understand how you feel. First time I judged him I sat there for 10 minutes, then I pushed my personal feelings aside and tried to review what I knew of him after his stupid and horrible mistake. A mistake he spent his life torturing himself over and is now trying to make it better. He even said he was not a good person back then. He changed because of the Inquisitor. Solas is willing to make the same mistake again, at the cost of more than just a few children and expects no one to survive. If Blackwall would willingly let himself get paid to murder another family, then I would say that's it, he's no good, but he spent years trying to make things right. Both are given a chance in my game, because I can't see myself forgiving one and not trying to redeem the other. Solas too changed because of the Inquisitor. He killed Felassan for no other reason than because Felassan was starting to see the people he saw as tranquil as real people. That's ironically why he broke up with Lavellan too lol

 

I guess I look at it this way. If you don't repeat your mistakes and work hard to redeem yourself, you deserve a chance. 

[maia0407]

I understand how you feel. First time I judged him I sat there for 10 minutes, then I pushed my personal feelings aside and tried to review what I knew of him after his stupid and horrible mistake. A mistake he spent his life torturing himself over and is now trying to make it better. He even said he was not a good person back then. He changed because of the Inquisitor. Solas is willing to make the same mistake again, at the cost of more than just a few children and expects no one to survive. If Blackwall would willingly let himself get paid to murder another family, then I would say that's it, he's no good, but he spent years trying to make things right. Both are given a chance in my game, because I can't see myself forgiving one and not trying to redeem the other. Solas too changed because of the Inquisitor. He killed Felassan for no other reason than because Felassan was starting to see the people he saw as tranquil as real people. That's ironically why he broke up with Lavellan too lol

 

I guess I look at it this way. If you don't repeat your mistakes and work hard to redeem yourself, you deserve a chance. 

Ah! I forget about the Felassan murder as I haven't read the book. Gah! Now I have more moral conscience wrestling to do!

[Mlady]

Ah! I forget about the Felassan murder as I haven't read the book. Gah! Now I have more moral conscience wrestling to do!

 

Just remember the Solas back then was not the man he is now because we changed him. We helped him see people as real. He spent over a year with us, seeing things he always cast off as nothing but a mistake as something tangible now. Now he is struggling as he goes through with his horrible plan because a small part of him hopes there's another way. This is why as a friend to my Trevelyan he tells her he treasures the day he's proven wrong again. I will never select the kill option. Not after that.

[Iakus]

 

With Blackwall, his motivation for killing those people was greed. That's it. He wasn't trying to prevent a catastrophe; he was the catastrophe. Cole even remarks that he heard the children singing in the carriage. He knew they were there before the slaughter happened. It's just disgusting and I can't look at him in the same way. The fact that he let his men take the fall for his decisions also makes me hate him. Like I said, I don't kill him so he has every option to redeem himself. I just don't extend friendship to him.

I kinda wonder if Cole's comment here wasn't meant on multiple levels:

 

Blackwall: Why are you here?  Do you even understand what's happening in the world?
Cole: I heal the helpless.  Give hope where there is hurt.
Blackwall: But you've killed before.
Cole: Yes.  Before I knew what I was.
Blackwall: Why should we believe you can help now?
Cole: It hurts too much.  I can't be me, have to be someone who never killed.
Cole: Help enough, and I'm different. I'm not me.  Believe it to become it.
Blackwall: Maker's balls.
Cole: We can change, if we want it enough.

 

Blackwall's pretty much the emobdiment of the Planescape: Torment question:  What can change the nature of a man?

[Silent X]

@ phishface

 

If you can't forgive him, I understand. It is asking a lot. What he did was horrific; I'm not denying that. It is your game and ultimately you should do with him whatever feels appropriate to you.

 

However, you seem to be missing or failing to understand some things about his case. From your response, it's clear you're familiar with the banter I was referencing, yet you don't seem to have thought about what Cole was saying. I don't recall the exact wording, but Cole, in reading Rainier's mind, comments that when he heard the children's voices coming from the carriage he was thinking that if he called his men off they would know he had lied to them. From that remark it seems clear to me that Rainier didn't personally participate in the killing of the family. He was standing there, supervising as it were, and then he realized just what a horrible mistake he'd made and froze, unable to speak, unable to make the choice between saving Callier's family and saving himself. He did not "freeze" while continuing to slaughter people because he wasn't slaughtering them personally to begin with. Depending on how you look at it, you may consider this worse, that he would leave his men to do something so horrible without getting his own hands dirty. It remains unclear if he had originally intended to participate (he probably did, when he thought it would just be soldiers they were killing), but Cole's comments make me certain that he realized the children were there before he acted, and then just didn't act at all. His men went ahead because they trusted him and believed that somehow eliminating this bloodline must be vital to the security of the empire. Judge him as you see fit, but please get the evidence right.

 

And I agree that he's a great character, whether you love him or hate him.

[Mlady]

@ phishface

 

If you can't forgive him, I understand. It is asking a lot. What he did was horrific; I'm not denying that. It is your game and ultimately you should do with him whatever feels appropriate to you.

 

However, you seem to be missing or failing to understand some things about his case. From your response, it's clear you're familiar with the banter I was referencing, yet you don't seem to have thought about what Cole was saying. I don't recall the exact wording, but Cole, in reading Rainier's mind, comments that when he heard the children's voices coming from the carriage he was thinking that if he called his men off they would know he had lied to them. From that remark it seems clear to me that Rainier didn't personally participate in the killing of the family. He was standing there, supervising as it were, and then he realized just what a horrible mistake he'd made and froze, unable to speak, unable to make the choice between saving Callier's family and saving himself. He did not "freeze" while continuing to slaughter people because he wasn't slaughtering them personally to begin with. Depending on how you look at it, you may consider this worse, that he would leave his men to do something so horrible without getting his own hands dirty. It remains unclear if he had originally intended to participate (he probably did, when he thought it would just be soldiers they were killing), but Cole's comments make me certain that he realized the children were there before he acted, and then just didn't act at all. His men went ahead because they trusted him and believed that somehow eliminating this bloodline must be vital to the security of the empire. Judge him as you see fit, but please get the evidence right.

 

And I agree that he's a great character, whether you love him or hate him.

 

It's a natural human reaction to freeze up and then realize it's too late to say anything because you were too shocked to respond or hesitated for a mere second to question what would be best.

[AtreiyaN7]

I see. He must have been fighting back the tears as he slaughtered the children, their parents and the servants. Do you think he killed the children in front of their parents, or the parents in front of their children? Either way, poor thing, being all horrified and unable to process the situation. Of course, he didn't 'just freeze' enough to actually stop killing people, but hey, once you've started murdering it must be so difficult to stop.

Still, at least he owned up to it. Sure, it was after a few years. And after he let several of his men be executed. But a bit of voluntary community service and regret makes it all ok.

Anyway, one thing's for sure: they wrote a great character, as evidenced by these strong and diverging opinions.

 

Just put Blackwall and Cole together in the party and listen to their banter throughout the game, because there are a lot of exchanges that are specifically about the massacre. If you pay attention, it's made very clear that Rainier feels guilty and remorseful about the whole thing and that he wasn't expecting for there to be children in the carriage. He is horrified when he hears the children start singing, because that's when he first realizes that there are children present.

By the time he realizes what those children are there, the attack has already started, and it was basically too late to stop it (plus, it sounded like he was frozen in fear/indecision based on what Cole said). Additionally, Rainier's employer - Robert Chapuis - either outright lied to him about who was going to be in that group or was totally clueless about it (I suspect that Chapuis flat-out lied becuse he wanted the whole family wiped out all at once); according to Rainier, Chapuis said that it was only going to be Callier and his guards.

 

LATE EDIT:

 

(After Blackwall's personal quest)

• Blackwall: You, who heal the helpless... you're not angry about what I was hiding?
• Cole: You never hid from me.
• Cole: "Mockingbird, mockingbird." Too many voices in the carriage. Maker, they're young.
• Cole: If I tell my men to stop, they'll know it was all a lie. Cold, trapped, heart hammering like axes on a carriage door.
• Blackwall: Stop. Please.

That's the specific dialogue about this that makes it sound like 1) there were far more people than there should have been according to Rainier's employer (thus indicating that Chapuis probably lied about who was going to be in the group) and that 2) once Rainier realized that there were kids, he was horrified but ultimately couldn't/didn't stop it (it sounds he was frozen in fear or frozen by indecision, and the "axes on a carriage door" phrase seems to imply that his men were already attacking the carriage when this stuff was going through his head).

[Wulfram]

The thing about Cole is that he's all Compassion and no Justice. If a murderer won't murder again, then all he wants is for the murderer to stop hurting.

[ComedicSociopathy]

 

Best. Argument. Ever. 

[Mlady]

The thing about Cole is that he's all Compassion and no Justice. If a murderer won't murder again, then all he wants is for the murderer to stop hurting.

 

This sums it up pretty good.

 

Blackwall: They say you're a demon.

 

Cole: Yes. Or spirit. I want it to be spirit.

 

Blackwall: Either way, I know you're dangerous.

 

Cole: Yes. Like you.

 

Blackwall: What?

 

Cole: A sack on the side of the road, struggling. The boy runs from it, crying.

 

Blackwall: Fine, so you're dangerous and insane.

 

Cole: You would stop it if you could. That is enough. But don't do it again.

[Iakus]

The thing about Cole is that he's all Compassion and no Justice. If a murderer won't murder again, then all he wants is for the murderer to stop hurting.

Interesting, given he disapproves if you ally with the Wardens.

[AtreiyaN7]

 

How the heck did I miss seeing this the other day?!

 

*saves pic*

*coughs*

 

 

The thing about Cole is that he's all Compassion and no Justice. If a murderer won't murder again, then all he wants is for the murderer to stop hurting.

 

Oh, on this issue:

 

(If Cole spares the Templar during his personal quest)

• Cole: If you want to remember, remember this: if you become Rainier again, I will be here, and I will kill you.
• Cole: And if I become a demon again and hurt people, you will kill me.
• Blackwall: I believe I can work with that.

 

I think Cole is compassionate and gentle in general, but he is also capable of laying down the law if you make him more human. This is some of the banter that you can get between them if you've made Cole more human, which goes to show that he definitely won't let himself or Rainier do anything that he would consider evil/bad (and Rainier is obviously okay with that).

[Korva]

I kinda wonder if Cole's comment here wasn't meant on multiple levels:

 

Oh, definitely. There are parallels between the two, and obviously Cole sees that right away. He isn't lying about his identity nor was his own dark past motivated by greed, but he makes no excuses for himself. Both did wrong, both had to reinvent themselves ("make a new you"), both want and need to be better than their past.

 

Interesting, given he disapproves if you ally with the Wardens.

 

I think that's because the game seem to interpret that choice as letting the Wardens off the hook scot-free with essentially no acknowledgment of their wrongdoing from either the Inquisitor or themselves. Some of the others react similarly, especially Cassandra. My Inquisitor allied with both the Wardens and the Templars, but in my mind she did not do so without harsh words about their failures and what she expects from them from here on out. For me the choice at Adamant was not a matter of, "No hard feelings, you were duped," and more like, "Hundreds of my soldiers are dead because of you, the war still rages on, you WILL take their place in the field wherever you are not an obvious risk to us."

 

For Cole, there's also the matter of looking at the demons bound by the Warden mages and realizing that this could have been his fate as well ... who knows how many of these demons were innocent spirits before they were ripped from the Fade. Most mortals won't even know or care, but he does.

 

I think Cole is compassionate and gentle in general, but he is also capable of laying down the law if you make him more human. This is some of the banter that you can get between them if you've made Cole more human, which goes to show that he definitely won't let himself or Rainier do anything that he would consider evil/bad (and Rainier is obviously okay with that).

 

The same is true if he becomes more spirit-like again -- killing becomes harder on him, but he's still able and willing to draw that line. I think his harsh reaction to Blackwall in this banter, one of the few times in the game where he does get sharp with anyone, is based partly on drawing that line and partly on personal pain. Blackwall blunders into the whole still-raw wound regarding the original Cole's death by implicitly comparing himself to that templar, and it's just something our Cole can't cope with in that moment. Just as more-spirit Cole protects himself by being aware of "shackles", more-human Cole protects himself by drawing his own boundaries because his well of patience and kindness is no longer near-infinite now. It's a good sign that both aspects of him are able to protect themselves, IMO.

 

Plus, I have the impression that Blackwall is rather more insensitive in the human-side version of this banter. He makes it about what the templar feels, while the spirit-side banter is about what Cole himself feels. In that version, Blackwall almost seems to be begging for condemnation, whereas the human-side banter strikes me as him wanting to be reassured. Those are two very different things for "the murderer" to ask of "the victim".

 

How the heck did I miss seeing this the other day?!

 

That picture looks like some unfortunate magical accident merged Blackwall with Dorian, and neither of them knows WTF to make of this.

[Silent X]

@ maia 0407

 

I very much admire you for being able to take a step back and evaluate Blackwall's past and present in relation to each other even while being disgusted with his actions. Sending him to the Wardens to redeem himself is more than fair, and I understand why you wouldn't want to be friends with him after learning what he'd done.

 

As far as Solas goes, it sounded to me like his sole, or at least main, motivation for tearing down the veil is to restore the world to a state that feels right to him--which I suppose would be its natural state. If there were another impending catastrophe that he's trying to prevent, I feel like he would have mentioned it at least broadly. Still, you're absolutely right that we know very little about his plans so far, so I could certainly turn out to be wrong. My Inquisitor had regarded Solas as a friend and mentor, so she also told him she would find a way to redeem him. I worry that it may not be possible in the end. If she can't find a way to dissuade him from destroying the world and killing everyone in it, then she will resign herself to killing him. But I feel that the Inquisitor owes a lot to Solas (mine, anyway; I'm sure not everyone feels that way) and ought to make an effort to redeem him.

 

@ Anariel

 

I totally agree except on one point: I don't think it's so much because of the Inquisitor that Blackwall changed, I think it was mainly the real Blackwall who changed him, by giving him a reason to believe he could in fact choose to be a different person from the one he had been. He's already doing good work when we meet him. The Inquisitor probably cements his new identity. By all indicators, he had isolated himself and had no real relationships (of any kind, I'm not talking about romance here) with anyone since the massacre. I think that joining the Inquisition, living, working, fighting, and chatting with the same people every day, may have been the final thing that tipped him toward accepting that hiding behind a false identity was not sustainable. When you're renting a room for the night, it hardly matters if the innkeeper knows your real name. But having friends, possibly even a lover, and realizing that none of them actually know who you are? That you're deceiving people who like you and think they know you? That's extremely uncomfortable. And of course it's through one of Leliana's reports that he learns about Mornay's impending execution. It may have been the first time since his change of heart that he actually heard about the capture of one of his men with enough time to intervene. I think he was already pretty much a changed man when he joined the Inquisition, but the Inquisitor perhaps gave him the opportunity to realize that in order to redeem himself fully, he would have to face what he'd been running from. Or maybe that's what you meant all along and I just misunderstood.

 

@ AtreiyaN7

 

Thank you for posting the full banter! I understood it the same way. The "Cold, trapped, heart hammering like axes on a carriage door" sounds to me overwhelmingly like the realization hit him as he was nearing the carriage, behind his men, and then froze, unable to do anything as he watched his men attack the carriage, and subsequently its occupants.

[AtreiyaN7]

 

The same is true if he becomes more spirit-like again -- killing becomes harder on him, but he's still able and willing to draw that line. I think his harsh reaction to Blackwall in this banter, one of the few times in the game where he does get sharp with anyone, is based partly on drawing that line and partly on personal pain. Blackwall blunders into the whole still-raw wound regarding the original Cole's death by implicitly comparing himself to that templar, and it's just something our Cole can't cope with in that moment. Just as more-spirit Cole protects himself by being aware of "shackles", more-human Cole protects himself by drawing his own boundaries because his well of patience and kindness is no longer near-infinite now. It's a good sign that both aspects of him are able to protect themselves, IMO.

 

Plus, I have the impression that Blackwall is rather more insensitive in the human-side version of this banter. He makes it about what the templar feels, while the spirit-side banter is about what Cole himself feels. In that version, Blackwall almost seems to be begging for condemnation, whereas the human-side banter strikes me as him wanting to be reassured. Those are two very different things for "the murderer" to ask of "the victim".

 

 

 

 

That picture looks like some unfortunate magical accident merged Blackwall with Dorian, and neither of them knows WTF to make of this.

 

Well, I would have called it a fortunate magical accident, myself.

 

As for Cole as a spirit, I haven't ever taken that route because I don't like stunting his growth as an individual, but from what I've read of the spirit Cole banter, he seems to be a somewhat softer/gentler in tone than he is when he is made more human. I guess it just seems a bit more obvious that human Cole will put his foot down over certain matters and can get more emotional over certain things.

 

Regarding the human Cole-Blackwall exchange I pasted in earlier, I viewed it as a serious, straightforward pact between the two individuals who have an understanding of each other. There was a lot of emotionally charged stuff going on, and Cole in particular was deeply afraid of being turned into a demon against his will and being forced to kill. Essentially, both Cole and Blackwall had fears/concerns that they might regress and didn't want to go back to what they used to be, etc. Now as for their exchanges involving the templar in general, none of it really strikes me as Blackwall intentionally making it all about the templar or himself or that he's insensitive to Cole when you make Cole more human. For example:

 

(If Cole spares the Templar during his personal quest)

• Blackwall: I hear you found the templar that hurt you.
• Cole: Yes. I tried to kill him. I thought it would fix it, fix me.
• Blackwall: Did it?
• Cole: No. But I'm more real now. I'll remember.
• Blackwall: Good. Remembering is the only way you learn.
• Cole: It hurts.
• Blackwall: It does.

 

I think Blackwall largely sounds sympathetic and understands how Cole feels. In this case, Blackwall is pretty much saying that remembering what you've done and not running away/hiding from it is the only way you can ever grow and learn, while also expressing sympathy over how much pain it can cause. There's certainly that one exchange where Blackwall asks what Cole thinks the templar's doing that you might be referring to:

 

(If Cole spares the Templar during his personal quest.)

• Blackwall: What do you think your templar is doing now? Trying to make a new life for himself?
• Cole: Stop. It isn't about you.
• Blackwall: What?
• Cole: Callier. His family. His children. You wonder if some part of them watches you still.
• Cole: You wonder if they want you to feel guilty, if they want you to make up for what you did... but they don't.
• Cole: If they're watching, all they want is not to have died. It isn't about you.
• Blackwall: (Sighs.) We are a pair, you and I. The victim and the murderer.

Blackwall could have been making a direct comparison between himself and the templar in his own head, or maybe it was an unconscious comparison, but this whole thing seems to be the net result of Cole poking around in Blackwall's head yet again and picking up on private thoughts (be they conscious or unconscious comparisons). That being said, Blackwall is, indeed, not always good at being tactful and can definitely step in it when he opens his mouth sometimes - lol.

[Joe25]

Blackwall's theme song.

[AtreiyaN7]

@silent: No problemo! I thought that seeing that banter would be handy for people who either haven't seen in or don't remember the exact phrasing.

[Joe25]

[Mlady]

I totally agree except on one point: I don't think it's so much because of the Inquisitor that Blackwall changed, I think it was mainly the real Blackwall who changed him, by giving him a reason to believe he could in fact choose to be a different person from the one he had been. He's already doing good work when we meet him. The Inquisitor probably cements his new identity. By all indicators, he had isolated himself and had no real relationships (of any kind, I'm not talking about romance here) with anyone since the massacre. I think that joining the Inquisition, living, working, fighting, and chatting with the same people every day, may have been the final thing that tipped him toward accepting that hiding behind a false identity was not sustainable. When you're renting a room for the night, it hardly matters if the innkeeper knows your real name. But having friends, possibly even a lover, and realizing that none of them actually know who you are? That you're deceiving people who like you and think they know you? That's extremely uncomfortable. And of course it's through one of Leliana's reports that he learns about Mornay's impending execution. It may have been the first time since his change of heart that he actually heard about the capture of one of his men with enough time to intervene. I think he was already pretty much a changed man when he joined the Inquisition, but the Inquisitor perhaps gave him the opportunity to realize that in order to redeem himself fully, he would have to face what he'd been running from. Or maybe that's what you meant all along and I just misunderstood.

 

I didn't specify the timeline. I meant after you forgive him and let him go free (jailing or having him killed solves nothing unless you are playing a hardened Inquisitor in my opinion), he changes for the better and stops hiding, even takes back his true name. The first part about Blackwall changing him is correct though. That's what started it.

[DebatableBubble]

I just can't with Blackwall. His actions are just too horrible for my Inquisitor to ever look at him as a friend and as someone to be trusted. I don't kill him but my canon sends him to the wardens.

 

I do struggle with the fact that I like Solas and hope to redeem him, though. Is that hypocritical? I don't know. I think that Solas' original actions, putting up the veil, were justifiable in that he took the only course of action available to him to prevent the destruction of the world. I'm reserving final judgement on his intent with his current plans as we just don't know enough about why he is doing what he is doing. I still hold out hope that he's trying to prevent another catastrophe and acting on his only available options. Intent maters a lot with me; but, if his plans are simply about restoring his world and not working to save a world about to be destroyed, he'll go in the Blackwall bin of evil.

 

Yeah, actually. 

 

Then again, I actually like Blackwall and I find Solas to be a POS so...