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[midnight tea]

I meant that he had no one else to give the Orb to, Corpyheus was the only viable alternatice since he didn't want to wait for his powers to come back. 

 

Again - where do you get the information that "he didn't want to wait for his power to come back"?

 

And what makes you think that the power was even capable to coming back to him without devices like the orb, or sacrifices like Flemythal?

We have no information on this. In fact, the information that Solas gives us at the end of Trespasser was that for most of that time in Uthenera he was "unconscious" - as if, either the Veil creation or springing a trap on Evanuris left him drained to a point that he literally could not wake up, and possibly could not do anything other than very slowly regenerate. Then he tells us that he "woke still weak" - as if either he had to wake up still weak, or he didn't manage to regenerate enough over the years. What's more, Cole in Trespasser tells us that "He broke the dreams to stop old dreams from waking. The wolf chews his leg off to excape the trap".

 

This basically tells us that Solas had to sacrifice something of himself for his plan to work. This could be a very good reason why he needed external source of power, when he himself was recovering from in appears to be a very deep coma.

 

Also - how did you know he had no one else to give the Orb? We know that this is eventually a target he picked, out of desperation, a way to eliminate a dangerous group, power of magic or all of the above. We don't know if it was the only option left to him - in fact, events after Temple Of Mythal suggest that it was not, but for one reason or another Solas deems it too dangerous or tempting that he chooses Corypheus over it.

 

Dialogue with Viv after ToM:

Spoiler

Vivienne: I confess, Solas, I expected you to be back at the Temple of Mythal.

Vivienne: Some powerful magic yet remains there... if it can be trusted.

Solas: For once, we agree. Many relics were lost for good reason.

Vivienne: You explore the Fade to ferret out such secrets, do you not?

Solas: When I awaken each morning, all I have with me are those secrets.

Solas: The power at the Temple of Mythal is tangible, potent... and far too easy to misuse.

Vivienne: We are not so different after all, my dear apostate. We both believe magic must be limited safely.

Solas: Only a fool would ignore such a stark reminder of the destruction of an empire.

Solas: We may disagree on many things, Enchanter. But neither of us is a fool.

Vivienne: You are too kind.

 

Again, something good came out of the whole debale but, IMHO, it wasn't really the desire to rid the world of a maniac that motivated Solas to give Cory the orb. It was desperation and, also, an uncaring attitude towards the damage Corypheus could have caused with it.

 

If the plan was to kill Corypheus - and we know that it was - you cannot state things like "uncaring attitude towards the damage Corypheus could have caused with it", because the issue would be literally taken care of the moment Cory tries to pry the Orb open. No matter how you try and spin it, eliminating a dangerous magister and his group of supremacist is a win-win for everyone... so long as the initial plan works of course.

 

It didn't, and we got the result we did, though ironically we eventually got the similar result - eventually Corypheus was eliminated as a threat.

 

Hell, he doesn't even show regret about all the people that were killed at the Conclave(and he knew the orb would cause such an explotion so, again, since he gave such a tool to a maniac, it's implied that he didn't much care about other innocent people who would die because of it), he just regrets that Cory delayed his plans.

 

a.) We've been through this already. Yes, Solas actually displays regret during his travels - but that he regrets all the hurt that was brought with the Veil to a point that he doesn't just mourn the most recent victim, but looks at a bigger picture, is not really a point against him.

 

b.) Solas is incredibly reserved and holds his emotions on a very tight leash: just because he doesn't display his regrets externally or or does so in a subdued way doesn't mean that he doesn't feel things. In fact, he addresses this point in the game in regards to elves: "So you attack me, not for failing to have some magical solution, but for not appearing to care? Which is it? Do you wish me to find a way to help elves, or do you wish me to cry, to prove my feelings?"

 

He rises quite a good point - just because he doesn't cry or laments things openly (but focuses on finding solution) doesn't mean he doesn't care. You have to keep in mind that Solas had not just spent an incredibly long time alone, but for thousands of years trying to avoid demons, while it appears that he was in a fairly vulnerable position after the draining effects of the Veil creation. And what does attract demons in the Fade? Feelings and emotions, or colorful outbursts of them. We know that he avoids them in the Fade because he explains so to Iron Bull. That means that he has a pretty exceptional control over his emotions - to see him display them you either have to closely listen to him, watch what he approves, scratch that surface or surprise him with a sudden and very emotionally draining situation (sudden death of his oldest friend from hands of ignorant mages, listening to Wardens' mad plan, wavering between duty and either tentative friendship he struck with Inky or falling in love with them).

 

c.) no, he did not know that the ritual - ritual that was disrupted I'd like to point out - would result with such explosion. How can I claim this? Because it has created the Breach. And Solas practically drops everything and rushes to try and fix it.

 

About Solas "the hypothetical savior"..... yeah, i disagree. There was the mage/templar war, but apart from that there is no evidence something "bad" was going to happen, or something worse than the norm anyway. I think he's disgusted by the Blights for the same reason Cory is disgusted by the Blights, they are horrible things that weren't there in their times (well, possibly they were in Cory's times)

 

What do you mean there was no evidence that something "bad" was supposed to happen? That something grand and terrible is coming has been hinted at ever since DAO (and I don't just mean the 5th Blight), and it's even more stark in Inquisition - even Morrigan exclaims in ToM: "There's a struggle to control the world's future path. Can you not see it? History haunts us, Inquisitor! It seeks to resurface. Corypheus is but first to arise!"

 

Also - how can you even seriously claim that Corypheus is "disgusted" with the Blight, when not only he's the original Darkspawn, but he readily uses it? The red lyrium he spreads? Blighted. The red magic he uses? Blight magic. What's more, we hear him him saying in Temple of Dumat (Calpernia's quest, after picking Templar route) that he heard that people accuse him of spreading 'the darkness', which he said they've found in Golden City - and then he said that they readily embraced it and let it permeate his beings to make them more powerful.

 

So no, Cory is not disgusted with Blight. He fully embraces it, even if he doesn't see himself as Darkspawn. Cory is disgusted with the world with no higher power - the Blights and everything that happens he attributes to the world without divine guidance and in his Blighted mind he sees himself as one. 

 

That is entirely different to the terror and disgust Solas feels towards the Blight. He's horrified with Wardens' plans. He explicitly states that the Blight is a real problem and it's not a power one smugly outsmarts. He hints at the problems in Elvenhan arising because the Evanuris thought the Blight is a form of ultimate power. It's hinted in Trespasser that his efforts were to try and stop it spreading. What's more, in an enemy route in PT it's very strongly implied that he himself thinks that it will remain a problem no matter of the results of his own plans (Inky: "So far the Wardens are our best solution against the Blight!" Solas: "If that's the truth then... let us hope otherwise. For all our sakes.")

 

Obviously Solas knows way more about the Blight than we do now and it terrifies him, in more ways that a shadow of future outpouring of Darkspawn terrifies modern Thedosians. It seems that he tried to fight it (or its spreading) in the past, and might be a large part of what he's doing now.

 

Plus, honestly, i think "ancient evil coming back and the bad guy is the good guy" would just be detrimental to his character. He's fascinating because of the way he is, a layer of secret niceness would just make him less complex

 

I don't see how a struggle against ancient horror and either making mistakes or desperate moves against it and a conflict that comes with it is a less fascinating story. Just because, say, it would turn out Solas ultimately tries to work towards a genuinely noble goal doesn't mean that the route he takes is the best one. Loghain also has different ideas how to fight the 5th Blight, didn't he? Warden also has different choices along the way - some better than others, some highly questionable. So is Inquisitor in fact, and there's no way of telling what large conflict they'd stand before, when they actually find out more about Solas' plans or ancient past?

 

How is it detrimental I just can't see. In fact it only makes the story more realistic and gripping. Indeed, it's an integral part of DA - you have a problem: how do you deal with it? How do you deal with it when you have limited options? What if you have to do something bad or questionable? What if there are sacrifices to be made? Do you make a quick, 'deal with the devil' type of decisions, or do you take time nd think - but what if you have no time?

 

And so on and so forth. THAT I ultimately find fascinating - and Solas turning out to be struggling in a deeply complex situation that we as PCs may get pulled into (in fact I'd say that we're already there) is infinitely more fascinating than "an uncaring ancient demi-god tries to destroy the world to restore his people and we have to stop him".

 

My point was that one of the reasons he risked giving Cory the orb is that he found most(/all) people to be lesser than what he remembered. As is aid, he knew the unlocking of the orb would cause an explotion and since he did give it to a maniac, well, he either didn't care about the risk of Cory killing innocent people while unlocking it OR he didn't really care about thinking his whole pan through. Either way, he knowingly risked people's lives because he didn't care

 

Eh, we've been through this multiple times, so I'll just address this: you keep repeating that he didn't care, but you give very little evidence for it - at this point it reached the point of turning into circular reasoning. He doesn't care, so he gave the orb to Cory - why does he gives the orb to Cory? Because he does not care.

 

Nevermind all the already cited evidence demonstrating that he, in fact, does care. And just because he considers people as "lesser" or "incomplete" or whatever doesn't mean that he doesn't care about them (also, 'd like to remind that Fen'Harel's revolt was a rebellion of slaves and 'little people') - in fact he states very clearly during Trespasser that he does what he does to try and restore what he thinks he robbed form all the 'lesser people', even if it comes with grave consequences. So: as terrible as his plan currently is and as much as it requires sacrifices, he is motivated by exactly what you try and deny - caring about people.

 

I mean, that in itself is an interesting paradox to examine, rather than just dismiss it as "not caring" - Inquisition has actually focused extensively on it, as it kept citing example after example of people and institutions that started with good intentions or were motivated by care, yet either things didn't go as planned or all the lofty ideals, or their execution, turned into something foul.

 

In their heart many of those people think they're doing something good, or were genuinely motivated as care - heck, in some cases, they indeed did something good, or beneficial or things that saved people, but as time passed on we see their legacy or actions take a darker turn. Andraste has led a revolt against Tevinter and led the slaves to fight against them, but eventually she posthumously jump-started a religion that oppresses people in many ways. Solas has created the Veil to save people from something dire, but the freedom he offered itself came with dire consequences. Mythal is hinted to be one of the founders of Evanuris and Solas tells us that she cared about her people, yet eventually she became a head of pantheon that did more harm than good. And so on and so forth.

 

So really - we have example of a person who is put in a deep internal struggle; he wants to do the right thing, but with the way things played out or his own decision it forces him to make decisions that hurt people, or portions of people. He wants to minimize losses, but at the same time there will always be sacrifices. We have this and many wonderful things we can examine and watch him struggle.. and you just want to cheapen his character by simplifying his motivations 

 

Honestly, this whole thing describes why i find him so dislikable and just why his attitude kind of ticks me off. He plays god with people's lives, and claims to despise gods, judges everyone based on his own messed up morals, and yet based on his actions he's the one who should be judged, wants (and probably will) to kill lots and lots of people, and at the same time he somehow wants to The Inquisitor to prove him wrong (like, yeah, just killed a person but now please prove i did wrong in doing so).

 

Lol, everything you state merely describes a person that appears to be in deep internal conflict, which is what this particular tiger likes best. I like all the things you said you dislike - I like the fact that Solas is put in a situation that makes him go against people who deem themselves gods, but to stop them he himself must become what he hates. I like see him wriggle in impossible dilemma where he wants to be fair to people and live and let live, but at the same time he's in a situation that directly oppose his principles, for variety of reasons. I like that he mourns the world lost, but at the same time he learns to slowly appreciate and open-up to people in the new world, to a point where he readily jeopardizes his plans and allows the leader and protector of modern Thedosians learn of his schemes and work to stop him.

 

Your last point doesn't really make any sense though. Solas didn't yet came through with his plans - he tells you that he's about to kill, because he feels he has no choice and he pleads for a friend to stop or help him see another way, because he himself is lost in deep personal struggle. Like, he does a lot of what you say Loghain did; what he perceives as his duty pushes him on a road towards destruction and he's too broken and messed up to see the way off it and he asks the person he learned to appreciate to either destroy him or fight for people he doesn't really want to condemn. Again, that's not a point against Solas - that's a point for him.

[German Soldier]

That could be achieved more effectively by just killing the Inquisitor. 

 

1. The Qunari attack disappears.

 

Absolutely irrelevant point since this happen regardless.

 

 

2. Nobody knows why.

 

Every members of the Inquisition who were following the Inquisitor knows that they were fighting qunari.

 

 

3. Solas controls the Eluvians, thus most evidence of the Qunari attack, the Inquisitor investigation and of the Dread Wolf disappears. 

 

The inquisitor was not alone in the pursuing of Solas in Trespasser those companions knows that Viddasala mentioned the Dread wolf and his agents.

if the Inquisitor die and don't come back from that mirror the others members would be in alarm.

 

 

4. Solas and followers operate covertly with no one left to work against them behind the scenes. 

 

 

Investigations would begin to understand how the Inquisitor dies and why Viddasala mentioned the Dread wolf.

[Illegitimus]

It can be applied... but doing so is useless.  

 

You can apply the scientific method to art - but if that's what you think art is - you would be extremely wrong.

 

No.  It would not be useless to, for example, observe the fade in the vicinity of practitioners of blood magic to determine whether using blood magic actually attracts demons.  It would not be useless to examine the correlation between the length of the staff and effectiveness of the enchantment on the staff.  It would not be useless to determine correlation or lack of same between lyrium dosage and duration and degree of templar anti-magic.  

[Almostfaceman]

Absolutely irrelevant point since this happen regardless.

 

Every members of the Inquisition who were following the Inquisitor knows that they were fighting qunari.

 

The inquisitor was not alone in the pursuing of Solas in Trespasser those companions knows that Viddasala mentioned the Dread wolf and his agents.

if the Inquisitor die and don't come back from that mirror the others members would be in alarm.

 

Investigations would begin to understand how the Inquisitor dies and why Viddasala mentioned the Dread wolf.

 

Are you sure it's absolutely irrelevant? Not just slightly irrelevant? Or mildly irrelevant? It's not irrelevant since we have an Inquisitor coming back and explaining why the Qunari are gone, no longer controlling eluvians, and why they were using eluvians versus the Qunari simply disappearing mysteriously.

 

The members of the Inquisition who were following the Inquisitor would be at the mercy of Solas, who then controlled the eluvians. After Solas killed the Inquisitor, he'd kill of the rest of the team.

 

Mentions of a Dread Wolf and the disappearance of the Inquisitor would be alarming yes, but not very informative. Not nearly as informative as what Solas tells the Inquisitor, then lets the Inquisitor live to walk away and fight another day. You'd also have very little impetus from authorities to investigate the disappearance of the Inquisitor. Leaders of nations at that point would probably be more relieved than alarmed that the Inquisitor disappeared. They had after all called in the Inquisitor to tell him/her that they were a pain in their collective butts. Investigations by leftovers like Cullen or Josephine would have precious little to go on. Even the Qunari had little more than a shadow organizations leaders name and that they led a spy organization using eluvians... eluvians that nobody would be able to use at this point because Solas now had control. 

[midnight tea]

No.  It would not be useless to, for example, observe the fade in the vicinity of practitioners of blood magic to determine whether using blood magic actually attracts demons.  It would not be useless to examine the correlation between the length of the staff and effectiveness of the enchantment on the staff.  It would not be useless to determine correlation or lack of same between lyrium dosage and duration and degree of templar anti-magic.  

 

Yeah... I can never treat seriously anyone who says that applying scientific method to anything is "useless". Scientific method is so far the best tool we have to learn about the world (any aspect of it, including art, which is a form of human expression and gives us an insight on field of psychology, perception, anthropology, ethnography and so on).

 

And in Thedas magic IS part of the world - in fact the deep knowledge of magic was part of success of Elvehan. We can find books in Vir Dirthara that hint at elves approaching magic and its usage scientifically - they studied it, they held seminars, they researched ways to do it. Tevinter is still relatively powerful because Tevenes don't just sit on elvhen legacy, but research magic - Dorian after all was a magic researcher that rushed to the South after he found out that his former mentor took experimental time magic he worked on to Venatori and Elder One.

 

In fact this is also what Circles of Magi does - in limited fashion of course,  due to dogmatic nature of the Chantry - they're basically Thedas' scientific institutions focused on researching nature of magic and ultimately the world.

[BansheeOwnage]

So much to catch up on!

Next question: if Solas can transfer the anchor from a hand to his own, why didn't he do it as soon as Inquisition ended, before the Trespasser dlc?

A simple answer to that is that he wasn't powerful enough yet. We know he desperately wanted the orb back, but we don't know if it could have given him another anchor. Perhaps it could have. It's also possible simply having the orb's power again would have let him take it from the Inquisitor, or maybe he just wanted the orb's power to make his plan-B easier.

 

There's another huge issue at play and that is: is it ever justified to commit an act with the possibility of major casualties if you know that inaction will lead to a worse fate? I'm having a hard time with this question regarding Solas as he's hinted that this is the case for him. But again, were operating blind as to what is really going on. Is acting for the greater good a mitigating factor? I guess it depends on who is defining the greater good. Terrorist groups perceive their goals as being for a greater good. Western countries consider the innocent casualties of fighting these groups as a greater good. Acts on these scales approach a different level of complexity than an act of murder for money. Depending on whose eyes you are looking through, a terrorist act can be perceived as fighting back against an oppressive power or as an unjustified assault on innocents.

I mostly agree. I think Blackwall is worse than Solas, and I think motivation and circumstances are inherently important when judging crimes and actions in general. If they weren't, we wouldn't have "self-defense" as an excuse for killing.

 

With regards to the bolded, it's important to remember that inaction is itself an action. You make a choice not to do anything else. For simplicity's sake, let's remove Control and Synthesis from ME3's ending pool. Ignoring anything making sense, do we destroy the Reapers at the cost of all synthetic life? Or do we do nothing (refuse)? It seems like an easy choice to me. You're either having some people in the current cycle die, or everyone in the current cycle, and who knows how many more cycles die.

 

Solas may have faced a similar choice when deciding to initially create the veil, which would make it quite understandable to me. Whether or not he faces a similar choice now will be determined in DA4, I guess, so I'll also have to reserve judgement on that.

 

@maia0407:  It is interesting that you are an atheist - and here is why I think why.  As an atheist - you refuse to appeal to authorities which you cannot independently verify.  Is that correct?  You do not base your opinions on belief - but of fact - yes?  You cannot believe a priest, Pope, guru, swami, Imam, Rabbi, etc. simply because they tell you "this is so".  Is that correct?

 

I would suggest that, because you have an inkling that what Solas says is true.  Because you feel like what he says:  "Makes sense." Because you have imbued him with authority over your character's development - that you are simply exploring what it is to be faithful.  To be part of a belief based group that does not search for facts independently, but relies instead on a singular authority. 

 

I am not an atheist - though my "religiosity" is of no importance here - and I actually have the opposite reaction.  Having been a student of the "Cult of Personality" - I am, I believe, more inoculated against authorities.  

 

Solas is an authority on nothing to me.  His actions are not those of a wise being to me.  He shows, to me, none of the qualities of any great messianic, prophetic, spiritual being I have ever studied (and I have studied many).  He is - to me - an elf out of time struggling in all the worst ways to deal with his culture shock.  

 

And I think - that is the key.  To me, Solas is a man.  Not an "ancient and mysterious elf roiling with vast repositories of esoteric knowledge".  

 

It is this decision - the decision to elevate him - that would, in my opinion, make his actions, though leagues worse than Blackwalls, more palatable to you.  Blackwall is "just a man" - a man who has committed the horrible actions of a man.  You can see, with clarity, the gravity of his actions because you are comfortable with his status.

 

With Solas - your opinion of his "status" is higher than your own character.  Ergo, he must be "wise" and know more than you.  Yet, his constant failures suggest the opposite.  He is not a god.  He is not even really ancient... because he never "lived" the 3000 years that have passed.  

 

Try looking at Solas as just a modern City Elf trying to do what he's doing... do you see him differently?

I disagree completely. I don't see Solas as a "higher being", but I respect his knowledge and experiences, and he has no reason to lie. Even so, I take everything he says with a few grains of salt, and take into account that he's just one person with one perspective. But the core of what he says - the history - seems true.

[German Soldier]

No.  It would not be useless to, for example, observe the fade in the vicinity of practitioners of blood magic to determine whether using blood magic actually attracts demons.  It would not be useless to examine the correlation between the length of the staff and effectiveness of the enchantment on the staff.  It would not be useless to determine correlation or lack of same between lyrium dosage and duration and degree of templar anti-magic.  

You are being silly here by trying to measure in terms of quantity metaphsical concepts;a pride demon is more stronger than a desire demon.

Why? Is pride more stronger than desire? Can i measure pride in joule?

It would be useless to examine the correlation between the length of the staff and effectiveness of the enchantment on the staff because there are no rules behind these things(energy,gravity,entropy,enthalpy,ecc..) since magic is not energy and it does not depend on the matter but is coming from the dream world.

 

 

The members of the Inquisition who were following the Inquisitor would be at the mercy of Solas, who then controlled the eluvians. After Solas killed the Inquisitor, he'd kill of the rest of the team.

 

 

That's another assumption Solas had no interest to return back and eliminate the others companions, he doesn't even know that others were with the Inquisitor.

[Almostfaceman]

That's another assumption Solas had no interest to return back and eliminate the others companions,no he doesn't even know that others were with the Inquisitor.

 

You do realize you're making an assumption right here, right?

 

But mine is a logical assumption. In Trespasser, Solas tells the Inquisitor that he (Solas) drew the Inquisitor to him. This would have to be the case, Solas controls the eluvians. So, it's logical that once Solas has dealt with the Inquisitor, that he shut the doors behind him so nobody else but him and his forces can use them. What then with the remainder of the Inquisitors team? They'd be left wherever they were at, locked behind eluvian doors to starve or die of thirst or wander about aimlessly locked up in one area. If Solas and his forces detected them, which is logical since Solas controls the eluvian network (the Crossroads) he'll destroy them. If he strays on them accidentally as they're locked up, he'll destroy them. 

[midnight tea]

 

You are being silly here by trying to measure in terms of quantity metaphsical concepts;a pride demon is more stronger than a desire demon.

Why? Is pride more stronger than desire?

It would be useless to examine the correlation between the length of the staff and effectiveness of the enchantment on the staff because there are no rules behind these things(energy,gravity,entropy,enthalpy,ecc..) since magic is not energy and it does not depend on the matter but is coming from the dream world.

 

Amazing - you accuse people of arrogance and throwing things at people who disagree with them as "wrong" and "blind", while you just dismiss someone as "silly" without obviously understanding what they're talking about.

 

Science isn't just measuring things with mathematical precision. It's about making observations and testable models that allow us to describe or predict phenomenons - from most mundane, physical things you can think of, to things which people erroneously deem too 'esoteric' to be researched. Psychology is also a science after all, so is in fact studying dreams through fields like neurology. And even though we can't "measure" feelings, for example, we can totally research them with scientific ways. What causes them? What makes them stronger? What makes them trigger? Which parts of brain are responsible for them? Which hormones affect them? 

 

So just because magic in Thedas is a "stuff of dreams" doesn't mean it can't be researched. In fact it totally can, since it has empiric, direct, oftentimes very physical and real effects on Thedas. And anything that is observable, testable and can give consistent results (if you use a lightning spell - you create a lightning. If you use certain incantation, you can gain certain resistance to demon possession or mind control) is anything what science CAN study. 

 

Also, your example of 'pride demon is stronger than desire' is entirely ignorant. We CAN tell hings about deamons that are observable and testable - we can categorize them (pride, desire), we can predict that Pride is generally stronger than deesire, and in fact we can test and study ways how they're stronger or what makes them stronger. Like Nightmare, for example - we know that it steals memories to grow stronger and that it growing stronger and stealing memories has mental and even physical (they affect people's brain to a point that victims can't recall what happen until they venture to the Fade and collect their memories from there) effects. That IS a scientific observation.

 

What's more, Solas is a very scientific person (he tells us that logic and reason is necessary to extrapolate truth from the Fade and has generally very scientific mindset), stemming form a culture that - judging from findings in Vir Dirthara and Ghilan'nan's notes - has totally approached magic not just as an esoteric field, but one that can be scientifically researched, as I mentioned in comment above.

 

 

That's another assumption Solas had no interest to return back and eliminate the others companions,no he doesn't even know that others were with the Inquisitor.

 

If he doesn't know that companions that were with Inquisitor, why does he shut the eluvian after Inquisitor to prevent others from going after them?

 

In fact, how did he know about Bull's betrayal and subsequent death in playthrough that it happened? It happened realistically an hour to half an hour before Inquisitor met him, in a place he wasn't physically in, as far as we know (and theoretically he doesn't have to, because he has such good relations with spirits that he can ask them to protect his old sanctuaries without binding them and therefoe realistically can ask them about what is happening on the other side of the eluvian). 

 

So he knows about Bull's betrayal, but doesn't know that Inquisitor - who usually goes everywhere with a party of at least three or more AND is in life-threatening situation that may require assistance - has people following them?

 

This is nonsense on so many levels.

[BansheeOwnage]

I actually think that this is the biggest distinction between someone who likes and dislikes Solas.

 

Someone who dislikes Solas, views him as an ordinary man who made plenty of mistakes and therefore, has to be held accountable for what he is doing. On the other hand, someone who likes Solas, views him as a special snowflake, a messiah figure, a prophet of sorts who is above conventional ethnics and morals which justifies his actions.

A biased oversimplification. I don't recall seeing a single person who saw Solas as a special snowflake messiah prophet who's above anything.

 

Indeed, it seems like nearly everyone on either side sees Solas as "just a person who has made and can make mistakes" and do think he should be held accountable. How he should be held accountable, and to what degree, is a point of contention.

 

 

Dagna is Bioware way to try to portray magic as scientific,but you have only to look at Cole to realise that the scientific method can't be applied to magic or to the shapeshifters who are able to convert energy in matter in their own body every time they change their form which is something illogical for every physical law because it happen without consequences.

Not true. Thedas may have different physical laws, but you could still use the scientific method to study its nature. The Fade is another dimension entirely, with its own laws, and mages are bridging the dimensions when they perform magic. With that in mind, Thedas (the material, post veil) could actually have the exact same physical laws as our universe, with only the Fade-dimension having different ones, just as another dimension in real life could have different laws.

 

Well, there's one possibility - every other person in the room aside from the Herald and Justinia were Blighted.

True, but so is Alistair/Stroud/Loghain when you do it again in HLtA. So it seems like that's not enough for the rifts to deny passage into the fade. Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

 

You realize - of course - that he waits to get "god" powers before he starts acting with any sort of "courage"?  

He "took you by surprise" for three years... and only admits the "truth" once you've already discovered it all on your own.

 

He might not have betrayed you - but he betrayed my current character.

 

He did not betray my main Inquisitor - because my main Inquisitor never trusted him to begin with.  

My point wasn't so much that he didn't betray you at all, in any conceivable way. It was more that he tries to reduce the betrayal as much as possible, and that makes him slightly more sympathetic to me, as well as helping me understand why he let you live and told you his plans.

 

It is not a dumb thing to do Solas did that regardless of relationship for his own interest so that everyone in the south will lower their guard

Except that if he let you die, people would either blame it on the Mark killing you, or the Qunari killing you. No one would know it was Solas. And it seems like even after letting you tell everyone about his plans, only the Inquisition remnant is willing to take The Solas Threat™ seriously anyway.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Something I just realized and posted in another topic. Sorry if it has already been discussed, but I thought it was worth sharing here too:

 

This isn't quite true, he says:

 

"An enemy can attack, but only an ally can betray you. Betrayal is always worse."

 

He doesn't say betrayal is the worst thing in the world. But to be honest, the more I think about it, the more I realize that he doesn't really betray us. Or at least, he tries to do so as little as possible, because he knows it's a terrible thing to do and go through.

 

This is why despite it being a fairly dumb thing to do, he saves your life in Trespasser, even if he hates your guts. This is why he explains his intentions. Instead of just letting you die or putting you out of your misery, he saves you. Because if he didn't, it would be a betrayal. Instead of saving you but not telling you his plans, he tells you, because that way you can't be betrayed, not really. Because before you actually start fighting each other, you know where you both stand. He doesn't take you by surprise, he lets you prepare, thus minimizing the "betrayal" as much as possible.

 

It's to the point where it's Honour Before Reason. To me, that helps me realize why he lets you live and tells you his plans, and makes him a bit more sympathetic, too.

That's still a betrayal. The fact that he is showing the Inquisitor respect doesn't make it less of a betrayal. Enemies have shown respect for each other throughout history, yet that doesn't make them less of enemies. 

 

He spares you because he thinks your death will cause more chaos that could potentially interfere with his plans. He doesn't spare you for your benefit, but for his. He could care less about you personally, since you're still going to be wiped out with the rest of the world for his plans. 

 

As for Solas revealing his plans, let's face it he was revealing it to the players, not the Inquisitor. It was Bioware telling us where they were going with him. Solas, who has lied or spoken half-truths about practically everything in the time we've known him wouldn't suddenly be perfectly honest to us with the one subject that would best be kept secret. 

[midnight tea]

True, but so is Alistair/Stroud/Loghain when you do it again in HLtA. So it seems like that's not enough for the rifts to deny passage into the fade. Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

 

It's true, but neither Alistair, Stroud or Loghain were ever under direct control of Cory. And from what we can see in the cutscene practically all Wardens on the Conclave were mages (and realistically must have been under his mind control, because we see no Wardens in Adamant consciously choosing to work for Corypheus, or even knowing they're being tricked by him), and were in fact using red magic to hold the Divine in the air - and red magic is usually the color of blight magic. The blight might have then consumed them to a point that it didn't let them cross to the Fade.

 

There's also another possibility though - blood magic. We know from Solas himself that blood magic makes passing through the Fade more difficult, hence he doesn't practice it. And we do know that Wardens readily use it. So the ritual they were entangled with then, be it one using blood or blight magic, might have been enough to prevent all of them - including Cory - from crossing the Veil once all hell broke lose.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

And so on and so forth. THAT I ultimately find fascinating - and Solas turning out to be struggling in a deeply complex situation that we as PCs may get pulled into (in fact I'd say that we're already there) is infinitely more fascinating than "an uncaring ancient demi-god tries to destroy the world to restore his people and we have to stop him".

That's all we'll be able to see him as with us being a new protagonist. 

[midnight tea]

That's all we'll be able to see him as with us being a new protagonist. 

 

Not true at all. That depends how they're going to construct the story and there's a multitude of ways they can do that. In fact the recent teases on Darrah's twitter with an emblem of a wolf head above towar/chess piece may indicate one possible scenario - DA4 will be like an elaborate chess match with Solas and Inquisitor as those who move their pawns. It's in fact very likely - especially judging from last Trespasser scene where Inquisitor pretty much explicitly states that they're going to recruit people in Tevinter - that the PC in DA4 will be an agent of Inquisition.

[Almostfaceman]

That's all we'll be able to see him as with us being a new protagonist. 

 

Unless Bioware brings in our Inquisitor like Hawke and we can have a conversation.

 

It's speculation, but I find it very likely, considering the end of Trespasser has the Inquisitor working covertly against Solas. 

 

Regardless, there's little Bioware can do to make us as players disregard the experience we had in Inquisition/Trespasser.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

DA4 will be like an elaborate chess match with Solas and Inquisitor as those who move their pawns. It's in fact very likely - especially judging from last Trespasser scene where Inquisitor pretty much explicitly states that they're going to recruit people in Tevinter - that the PC in DA4 will be an agent of Inquisition.

Unless Bioware brings in our Inquisitor like Hawke and we can have a conversation.

 

It's speculation, but I find it very likely, considering the end of Trespasser has the Inquisitor working covertly against Solas. 

 

That's literally the worst thing they could do with the Inquisitor at this point. I don't want them butchered like they did to Hawke when they took control. 

Regardless, the new protagonist will still not have the relationship, good or ill, that the Inquisitor and Solas have, so logically will not reach the same conclusions. To them, Solas is no different than Corypheus. Then again factually Solas is no different than Corypheus. 

[Abyss108]

A new protagonist wouldn't change their opinion of a guy trying to destroy the world just because a random stranger had a conversation with them and told them "no, he's totally not that bad, we used to date once".

[German Soldier]

You do realize you're making an assumption right here, right?

 

But mine is a logical assumption. In Trespasser, Solas tells the Inquisitor that he (Solas) drew the Inquisitor to him. This would have to be the case, Solas controls the eluvians. So, it's logical that once Solas has dealt with the Inquisitor, that he shut the doors behind him so nobody else but him and his forces can use them. What then with the remainder of the Inquisitors team? They'd be left wherever they were at, locked behind eluvian doors to starve or die of thirst or wander about aimlessly locked up in one area. If Solas and his forces detected them, which is logical since Solas controls the eluvian network (the Crossroads) he'll destroy them. If he strays on them accidentally as they're locked up, he'll destroy them. 

Which assumption that Solas didn't know which companions were with the Inquisitor?That's not an assumption.

 

How do you know that he can close the doors without touching it?

Having the keys for the eluvians doesn't mean that you can manipulate them with telepathy but just that you are the only one able to close and open them and the eluvians who were left behind were already opened.

 

-The  eluvians  can be manipulated with telepathy?

 

Amazing - you accuse people of arrogance and throwing things at people who disagree with them as "wrong" and "blind", while you just dismiss someone as "silly" without obviously understanding what they're talking about.

 

 

Silly yes i remember to have used that word,blind no i don't remember.

Yes you're right that i'm unable to understand what kind of principles exist behind DA magic because there is none as such i cannot really understand of what they are trying to prove.

 

Yeah... I can never treat seriously anyone who says that applying scientific method to anything is "useless". Scientific method is so far the best tool we have to learn about the world (any aspect of it, including art, which is a form of human expression and gives us an insight on field of psychology, perception, anthropology, ethnography and so on).

 

The scientific method is the typical mode with which science proceeds to reach a knowledge of objective reality, reliable, verifiable and shareable.

Art is also a matter of tastes and opinion you can't use the scientific method to categorize art.

 

 

 

So just because magic in Thedas is a "stuff of dreams" doesn't mean it can't be researched. In fact it totally can, since it has empiric, direct, oftentimes very physical and real effects on Thedas. And anything that is observable, testable and can give consistent results (if you use a lightning spell - you create a lightning. If you use certain incantation, you can gain certain resistance to demon possession or mind control) is anything what science CAN study. 

 

Also, your example of 'pride demon is stronger than desire' is entirely ignorant. We CAN tell hings about deamons that are observable and testable - we can categorize them (pride, desire), we can predict that Pride is generally stronger than deesire, and in fact we can test and study ways how they're stronger or what makes them stronger. Like Nightmare, for example - we know that it steals memories to grow stronger and that it growing stronger and stealing memories has mental and even physical (they affect people's brain to a point that victims can't recall what happen until they venture to the Fade and collect their memories from there) effects. That IS a scientific observation.

 

 

 

 

You're defining me as ignorant while pretending to use science to describe magic?

Uh magic of hedge mages manifest in a multitude of ways that cannot be standardized because there is no law bheind it.

Your example of the nightmare is totally ignorant.

-The nightmare grew stronger because it steal memories?How does memories convert in magical energy?Oh..you don't know... 

-Why a pride demon is more stonger than a desire demon?Oh...you don't know  

Observations is useless wihtout  understanding

 

In fact, how did he know about Bull's betrayal and subsequent death in playthrough that it happened? It happened realistically an hour to half an hour before Inquisitor met him, in a place he wasn't physically in, as far as we know (and theoretically he doesn't have to, because he has such good relations with spirits that he can ask them to protect his old sanctuaries without binding them and therefoe realistically can ask them about what is happening on the other side of the eluvian). 

 

So he knows about Bull's betrayal, but doesn't know that Inquisitor - who usually goes everywhere with a party of at least three or more AND is in life-threatening situation that may require assistance - has people following them?

 

This is nonsense on so many levels.

The iron bull side himself with the Viddasala at a certain point of Trespasser.

Before that the Inqusitor meet Solas he is with the Viddasala,no is not possible that the viddasla mentioned to Solas his former comrade Iron bull and told to him that he was working for her now,no is impossible is out of the realm of possibility.

"so much for nonsense on so many levels"

[Qun00]

A new protagonist wouldn't change their opinion of a guy trying to destroy the world just because a random stranger had a conversation with them and told them "no, he's totally not that bad, we used to date once".

And yet, that is precisely what's gonna happen.

[midnight tea]

And yet, that is precisely what's gonna happen.

 

Assumptions, assumptions...

[Almostfaceman]

 

Which assumption that Solas didn't know which companions were with the Inquisitor?That's not an assumption.

 

How do you know that he can close the doors without touching it?

Having the keys for the eluvians doesn't mean that you can manipulate them with telepathy but just that you are the only one able to close and open them and the eluvians who were left behind were already opened.

 

-The  eluvians  can be manipulated with telepathy?

 

Of course it's an assumption. There's a lot of ways Solas could know that the Inquisitor wasn't alone in the Crossroads. You're saying there's no way he could know? 

 

The eluvians can be manipulated with magic. There's no reason for Solas to say he has control of the eluvians then not have control of the eluvians. He either has control or he doesn't. Since eluvians are largely a mystery, Bioware has a zillion ways of later showing us how Solas has control of the Crossroads. 

[German Soldier]

 

 

Except that if he let you die, people would either blame it on the Mark killing you, or the Qunari killing you. No one would know it was Solas. 

I must have  imagined the point in which the Viddasala screamed Solas!

[German Soldier]

Of course it's an assumption. There's a lot of ways Solas could know that the Inquisitor wasn't alone in the Crossroads. You're saying there's no way he could know? 

 

The eluvians can be manipulated with magic. There's no reason for Solas to say he has control of the eluvians then not have control of the eluvians. He either has control or he doesn't. Since eluvians are largely a mystery, Bioware has a zillion ways of later showing us how Solas has control of the Crossroads. 

He is the one who can close and open them that's enough to say that he controls them.

That he can use telepathy to control them at distance is entirely another thing.

[Illegitimus]

 

You are being silly here by trying to measure in terms of quantity metaphsical concepts;a pride demon is more stronger than a desire demon.

Why? Is pride more stronger than desire? Can i measure pride in joule?

It would be useless to examine the correlation between the length of the staff and effectiveness of the enchantment on the staff because there are no rules behind these thing

 

 

Nonsense.  If there were no rules then we'd be seeing mages using actual magic wands to fire their bolts.  Or even rings.  Magic wouldn't be organized into skill trees.  We'd be seeing mages saying "To heck with lyrium or blood.  I'm powering up using guacamole!"

[Sah291]

A biased oversimplification. I don't recall seeing a single person who saw Solas as a special snowflake messiah prophet who's above anything.
 
Indeed, it seems like nearly everyone on either side sees Solas as "just a person who has and can make mistakes" and do think he should be help accountable. How he should be held accountable, and to what degree, is a point of contention.

I romanced him on my first playthrough, at launch, without any spoilers...I thought he was just a weird fade hippy and rebel mage, and while I figured out early on he was hiding something...I thought it was either going to be that he was spying for Cory, or that he was possessed by a demon or something like that.

Had I known he was really an ancient elf or an elven god before? ... I'm not sure if I would have romanced him or not. So yeah I did think he was just a guy...who would have some kind of personal drama like all mage bioware romances.