In regard to Solavellan disappointment regarding Mythal. Dragon Age: The Veilguard spoilers (ONLY regarding the Lighthouse murals, so if you haven’t finished but have seen all the murals like me, it’s safe) ahead:
So I’ve been noticing a number of people saying DATV basically cucked Solasmancers the entire game, but I think that A. It’s weird to say because it would have been a PAST relationship so there’d be no cheating and B. Solas and Mythal were not lovers.
Firstly, I think people really underestimate Bellara saying the ancient elves were extremely emotional creatures and that a word like “love” didn’t necessarily mean romantic love for them. Yeah, the Dalish got a lot wrong, but spirits are literally beings MADE of emotion. I imagine they feel in much different and stronger ways than we do, and perhaps even in more black and white ways than we do.
But beyond that, what is important to remember is that Solas was likely Mythal’s slave at one point. “He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face.” So we know for a fact that the first part definitely refers to Mythal telling Solas to take a body. Which means the second part is also definitely about the two of them. “…he burned her off his face.” What does that likely mean? He removed his vallaslin from his face—specifically, his Mythal vallaslin. And what did vallaslin originally mean?
Solas was literally Mythal’s slave. He says the Evanuris are not gods, he even says this in flashbacks, but Solas wasn’t completely different than the elves who worshiped the Evanuris because they were powerful and brainwashed. Solas worshiped Mythal, even if not in the same way other ancient elves worshiped the Evanuris. Mythal could do no wrong in Solas’s eyes, she was perfect. And even when she wasn’t perfect and she did things he did not approve of, he still worshiped her because she was, in a way, his goddess. Solas was basically brainwashed. We say it’s a friendship or a romance or whatever we believe, but Solas was once her literal slave. Since the very beginning, he and Mythal have been on completely unequal footing.
And more than all of this, we have the Solas romance as what I think is huge proof that he and Mythal were not lovers. Sure, he says “it’s been some time” when they start their relationship, so maybe he did have some one-sided feelings for her (whether or not he loved her, you are not convincing me they had a romantic relationship), or maybe he was just talking about making himself vulnerable or revealing himself to someone. But look at how he acted with Lavellan. Then look at how he acted with Flemeth at the end and how he spoke of her in Trespasser. Even at the end, when she, having evolved into Flemeth, seemed to care about him as more of a friend than a slave, he was not on equal footing. He still worshiped her, as implied by his mural in which he has Flemythal speak in Mythal’s original voice and degrade him instead of the affectionate goodbye they gave each other.
Solas loved Mythal, imo in a non-romantic way. And Solas loves Lavellan. But whatever way you believe he loved Mythal, his love with her was toxic, and it was never equal. Mythal was forever his goddess, and he—to an extent—was forever her slave, despite destroying the markings on his face that marked him as such. Solas worshiped Mythal, and even after millennia of their relationship evolving into something more akin to a normal friendship, he still ultimately loved her like you’d love an idea or a dream. He loves Lavellan like a man loves a woman.
TLDR: Solas needs therapy and an in-depth explanation of imbalanced power dynamics.
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