The Insidious Cycle of the Abuser Who Says They Love You: Mythal and Solas
Likely goes without saying, but Veilguard spoilers all under the jump.
I have been absolutely wrecked by the end scenes in Veilguard for weeks now, and I want to do a deep dive into Solas's relationship with Mythal and how it absolutely reeks of abuse. Long post incoming!
CW for heavy discussion of cycles of abuse, trauma response, and abuse tactics.
When I finished my first playthrough, this moment hit me like an absolute freight train. His visceral response to her presence and the way he instinctively retreats and flinches back/puts out a hand to protect himself is a full-blown trauma response.
And then she starts talking and moving towards him, and it gets worse.
Solas curls in on himself; his body goes even further into self-protection mode. His face is downcast, not the way he bowed to his vhenan moments before with a straight back and open posture, but shrinking.
And then as she advances, he cowers.
He completely folds inward. He crumples; he shakes, he hyperventilates, and the moment she reaches for him, he fumblingly offers her the lyrium dagger to kill him with.
Is this shame? Yes, of course, but it's far, far more than that.
For the sake of brevity, I'm going to limit this list to the four most widely recognised trauma responses:
Fight
Flight
Freeze
Fawn
As someone whose primary trauma response is fawn (wooo CPTSD), which is intensely common among people who experience complex trauma, especially through emotional and prolonged physical/mental abuse where their needs are discarded, pushed aside, or otherwise steamrolled, I felt this right alongside Solas. My own body responded to seeing it. This is, quite frankly, one of the most visceral and realistic (and extreme) fawn responses I've seen depicted in media.
Mythal in this scene is...phew, something else.
"She was the best of them," Solas tells us in Trespasser.
But she was not good, everything tells us in Veilguard.
Let's look at his regrets in chronological order.
Through Solas's memories of regret, we see this germinate in his foundational regret: leaving the Fade to take a physical form.
He does not want to do this. He tells her he does not want to do this. From the conversation, it's clear it's not the first time she's asked.
And the way she asks? Outright coercion.
"You have so long observed the world. Why not consider joining it?" [I want you to do this thing, so I will frame it as logical for you to make the choice I want you to make.]
"But I have no desire to live as humans. Besides, this talk of taking on a solid form. I think you underestimate the danger." [I don't want to do that. It does not feel safe to me.] "When you took the glowing stone to build your body, did the earth not shake?" [This is dangerous and selfish.]
"The lyrium gives us the strength we had when we were of the Fade; we are the best of both physical and Fade." [It makes us powerful, so I don't care about the risks.] "I need your wisdom, Solas, to withstand the louder voices like Elgar'nan's who would go too far." [If you do not come with me, a tyrant you abhor will make others suffer.] "I need you."
"This is madness. You must know that." [I don't want to do this at all. This will hurt me. I don't want this.] "I will always follow where you go." [Because I love you and trust you.]
Mythal's words in this part are classic abusive framing. When appealing to his natural curiosity does not work and he expresses strong rejection of her logical thought process (just because I have observed this place does not mean I want to go there, echoing his comments to the Inquisitor in DAI: "Many Orlesian peasants dream of travelling to exotic Rivain. But not everyone wants to go to Rivain!") and expresses that there is significant danger to continue to build bodies out of lyrium, she changes tactics.
Her second tactic is that it gives them power--she implies that he is limited and not enough for being only of the Fade. If he follows her, he will be the best of both, like she is. She clearly already sees herself as above him.
Her third tactic is pure emotional blackmail: "I need you. I will give in to the tyrants without your wisdom, and having your counsel in the Fade is not enough. If you don't go against your own nature and desires, people will suffer...and it will be your fault for not being by my side."
She doesn't say those things outright, but they are implied by everything she is saying. He says again he doesn't want it--that it is madness and that she must be aware of that despite her ignoring any suggestion that she actually is. All she is seeing is power and her desires: for Solas to do what she wants him to do.
So he agrees. Because she is his friend, and she says she needs him.
As far as core wounds go, this one is a doozy. It's absolutely brutal, because it's irrevocable. It's a point of no return. It's the first in what will become millennia of regret, of her ignoring the Wisdom she coerced out of the Fade to do what she wants regardless, to continue to push him to twist his nature under the guise of the greater good, to continue to cede to Elgar'nan and enable the very tyrants she promised him to balance.
This regret was deeply painful for me to watch. The nuance here is easily lost if people don't understand abuse tactics and how this sort of manipulation is used. It also serves to bind Solas to Mythal, an enormous sunk cost fallacy in the making--once he has made this choice, there is no going back.
And you see Solas curled in on himself in anguish and regret from the trauma of taking a physical form. It is in deep, painful contrast to his open, free wingspan as a spirit of Wisdom; he will never be the same.
"Have you created what we need?" From the outset Mythal is framing this as his idea as much as hers, when from everything he says, that is not true.
"With this, the proper ritual will sunder every Titan from its spirit. But you must know, those severed dreams will certainly be driven mad, a disembodied blight of pain and anger. It--is--awful what we are doing."
"And the only way to end this war."
Again, Solas offers the wisdom she claimed she took him from the Fade to listen to. He warns her, again, of the danger. He does not want to do this. Just like he warned her of the earth quaking when they made their bodies--they, the Evanuris, started this war by taking what they wanted regardless of who it hurt. He never wanted to participate in it, but now he is in the middle of that war. Mythal was one of the initial perpetrators of this war; she brought Solas into it against his will because he loved her, and now he's stuck. He is past his point of no return. And she is still using his heart against him. She has isolated him from everyone he knew in the Fade; he has no one to support him. He. Only. Has. Her.
This is another classic abuse tactic; if the person being abused has no one else, they will continue to enable that abuse even if it harms others, because they cannot see a way out. If you don't do what I say, it will destroy our children, our family. If you don't do what I say, this war will consume all you have, and you no longer have a home to return to. If you don't do what I say and hurt yourself and the Other, more will suffer, and it will be your fault.
Again, his posture, curled up and broken, appearing to cradle a now-tranquil Titan beneath him--and be embraced in return. This is an interesting artistic choice here, one that aches. It speaks to the depth of his own wound and how much it rent his own spirit to follow through with Mythal's wants here; that it sundered him from his spirit as much as it did the Titans.
"You cannot do this, Elgar'nan! You swore we would give up our commands when this war was over!"
"Our people need our leadership. If you are unwilling, leave."
From Elgar'nan, this is expected. From Mythal?
"Our people must rebuild. And we must help unite them."
Solas, once again, betrayed. He put his trust in Mythal and in the other Evanuris to follow through with their promise. Everything he has done thus far is poisoned in this moment; had the Evanuris indeed stepped back rather than stepped on necks, perhaps Solas could have healed, found a way to live with what he had done, maybe even to make amends. But this starts his war anew--and Mythal is standing with his enemy despite her promises, despite every wheedling word she's used to get what she wants from him over the centuries and longer, despite him turning from everything, everything, he loved to love her. This is the moment where he understands that he has only been a tool to her all along.
"So we did not fight for freedom, but to conquer this land and our own."
Let's pick apart Solas's words.
So we did not fight for freedom: He truly believed that he was fighting for freedom, that no matter how bad it got, that he could bear it for freedom.
But to conquer this land: Literally the land, I think, because of the Titans. To subdue them at all costs. This was not what he came for, but he believed Mythal.
And our own: Our own, our people, more spirits we gave bodies for this war, more who may not have wanted to leave the Fade. Our own, our people. To Solas, he is one of them. In this moment, he realises how much Mythal holds herself above all of them.
Elgar'nan's words are all too telling: "We fought to win. And now the Evanuris are as gods. I do not answer to Mythal's annoying lapdog."
They all--all--see him thus. As her pet.
Because he is. She has, until now, controlled him utterly with her manipulation and "need" for him.
"The people are afraid. They must believe in something." Mythal does not even stand up for Solas here; she does not reject Elgar'nan's perception of him. All she does is further distance herself.
The people are afraid: The Evanuris made them. They are as controlled as Solas and more.
Elgar'nan asserts, "They need strength."
"And wisdom." Mythal has the absolute gall to attribute this to herself, when Solas is the source of the wisdom she "needed" for so long. (Belated addition: And another level here: she may also be saying again that she needs him, but doing so in a way that doesn't require her to stand up for him directly. Honestly, fucking gross.)
"They need gods who can protect them," Elgar'nan continues.
"We are not gods. You will learn that." Solas's voice here is pure defeat. The scales are falling from his eyes.
"Every lapdog holds a wolf inside," says Elgar'nan.
Solas knows that Elgar'nan's "protection" is hollow, based on subjugation. And I think in this moment, he learns that Mythal's is based only in her belief that she is better than those beneath her, who cannot possibly handle themselves.
So her lapdog becomes the Wolf.
"I was not certain you would come."
Solas's opening words in this regret show the distance between them already and how much he has realised he does not know this woman who called herself his friend.
And her response is to instantly blame him.
"You are the one who walked away. I never turn my back when my friend needs me."
In putting this post together, this line absolutely sucker punched me. I've watched these several times already, but the absolute audacity to blame him for standing up for his principles for the first time against all her manipulation? Hoo.
She blames him for doing just that, "turning his back when his friend needed him." She needed her enabler, and when he stopped, she turned bitter. Just like any abuser.
That he goes straight into "The Evanuris seek the magic of the Blight" instead of engaging, honestly shows that he's still Wisdom. That is one battle that is unwinnable, trying to stand up against an abuser's bullshit like that.
"Impossible," she says. "The Blight is safely sealed away forever."
Gaslight, girl boss, gatekeep.
"Though I wish I could believe you." [You have lied to me so many times.] "I have sensed the breaking of the wards."
And her answer is patronising. "I will investigate your claims." [I don't believe you.] "If they forget the danger of the Blight, I will endeavour to remind them."
Solas knows this is futile. "What if, instead, you left the Evanuris and remained with me? Do you not wish for freedom from this struggle?"
He asks her, again, to veer from the dangerous path. He desperately wants to believe he was not completely wrong about her, I think. If she were to leave, he could heal somewhat, for not having so thoroughly misjudged her character.
Am I enough for you? Was I ever enough? is the unspoken question here when he asks if she will remain with him.
And in return, he gets back even more patronising bullshit and hubris. "Be at peace, love. I will stop them."
(Can you tell Mythal pisses me off?)
She calls him love. What an unbearable insult after everything, to go on telling him she cares for him whilst ignoring his wisdom--the very wisdom she coerced him into leaving the Fade so she would have by her side--and consolidating her own power at the expense of his people.
"As you must," he says. "The Blight is our mistake."
Might be unpopular, but I do not think Solas bears a split fifty-fifty custody for whose fault the Blight is. Could he have said no about the dagger? Could he have pushed then? Maybe. But by this point, he'd already had probable millennia of complex trauma and a deeply abusive codependent relationship, probably also a level of magical bond. Like, sorry, BioWare, if you want to retcon everything you shared with us in Inquisition about being in service to the Evanuris ("You have given yourself into the service of an ancient elven god! You are Mythal's creature now. Everything you do, whether you know it or not, will be for her.") AND Mythal casually overriding her servants' will and Solas burning her vallaslin off his face and leaving a scar and devoting himself to freeing the elven people from the Evanuris's domination, fine, but I don't buy it. Even if there was no magical compulsion on him all this time, that is immaterial.
Complex trauma literally rewires the brain to survive. She spent lifetimes programming him, isolating him, stripping from him every bit of agency he had. This man did not have the capacity to say no.
When our no is trampled even for a few months or years, we stop trying to use it. We comply. We, as mortal humans, cannot begin to comprehend the compounded trauma of millennia of this happening with the stakes of worlds in the balance. Solas, quite simply, has lost the entire ability to consent. No one of us can even imagine.
Yet he managed to walk away from her somehow, when she chose Elgar'nan. This man is stronger than anyone gives him credit for.
The dagger was clearly Mythal's idea. The plan to sever the Titans from their dreams, clearly her idea. To end the war. For there to be "peace". For there to be "freedom". Except that never came.
His loyalty was to her and to their people; hers was only ever to herself.
And again, she walks away and lets Solas suffer.
What a good friend.
[screaming from the general direction of Scotland]
She put her trust in monsters instead of her oldest friend, and the monsters ate her face.
Anyone surprised? I'm surprised. (I'm not surprised.)
And on top of this, Mythal finally, finally giving Solas one tiny breadcrumb that she had any principles remaining? I think that cemented his bindings to her forever. Not just that the Evanuris killed her, but why they killed her: because after millennia, she listened to him.
For someone that deep into trauma and abuse? Well. We know what happened.
It cannot be overstated that with his imprisonment of the Evanuris and the Blight, Solas saved the entire world. The entire world. Every living being in Thedas had a chance at life because of him. Only because of him.
Morrigan says it early on in the game, that for all the consequences of the veil (which, it also must be said, was not supposed to be global!), "his imprisonment of the Evanuris was just. Had he not done so, all of Thedas would have fallen to the Blight."
And the world has hated him for it.
He woke after sleeping for millennia, exhausted by this immense act of magic, to discover that not only had it gone horribly wrong, but that it had cost his people everything. That Tevinter had come in and enslaved them, released a trickle of the Blight after breaking into the Black City, used so much blood magic that the veil itself all over Thedas has been in tatters--not least because in releasing the Blight, the survivors had had to face down and kill the dragon thralls (archdemons) of the Evanuris, rendering five out of seven of them mortal, and with their deaths over the intervening centuries, the veil had grown threadbare with only two Evanuris sustaining it.
The risks were catastrophic, the price unbearable.
Everything he'd ever done to protect the world could still come crashing down...and in a sick twist of fate, he would be alive to see it.
And, shockingly, so would Mythal.
Mythal, whose fragment has just been chilling in a swamp for centuries in human form. Mythal, whose abuse of him lasted through the entirety of the world's history. Mythal, who, due to the Evanuris's betrayal and her abusee's abandonment, has become little more than retribution.
Mythal, who could have set him free at any point in all this time and didn't, because he was hers.
Mythal, who is the only remaining person with the power to do what he feels must be done.
I find it interesting that they chose not to use the post-Inquisition dialogue at all. Interesting also that they used Mythal's voice actor and not Flemeth's. This feels like a retcon, but we'll go with it. Whatevs.
"I knew that you would find me soon enough. You need the power of a god, the strength that I alone still carry."
She's still asserting her own godhood.
He's not having it. "The blighted Evanuris will soon break free from their prison. I must make a stronger one that can contain them."
He's not wrong. Not even a little bit wrong. And he's also right that she won't help him. Why would she? She never has.
"While the prison is important, it is not the only goal you seek."
"Why should I not tear down the veil? And bring back immortality to all the elven people? They deserve it."
And this is where I get even more raging, because Mythal's answer is this: "The elven people of today do not deserve to see the world they love torn apart to salve your conscience."
I'm sorry, what?
The world they love? The world that has offered them nowt but literal genocide for thousands of years? The world where in Tevinter, they're chattel slaves and worse, fuel for blood magic without a thought? The world where in the "civilised", slaveless nations to the south, they're either confined to alienages and subjected to repeated genocide (that's what a "purge" is, if anyone isn't clear on that) or the remnants of the Dales, who are the descendents of another enormous genocide? The world where elven magic has been pillaged but elven mages in human settlements are confined to Circles and abused or made tranquil or also genocided by Templars invoking the Rite of Annulment? The world where they're called "elf savage" and "rabbit" and "knife ear" and cannot participate in Thedosian religious life because the Chantry erases every instance of elves from even the Chant of Light? The world where it took the Inquisitor installing a perpetrator of genocide on the Orlesian throne (both Celene AND Gaspard fit this bill) and either having Celene reconcile with Briala (Briala and Celene's relationship could be a whole other post. Boak.) and blackmailing them to give a single elf lands and a title? That world????
What the fuck, Mythal, die faster.
I got real mad there for a second. I'm fine. I'm fine!
Solas, once more, simply says, "I must fix what I have broken. I am sorry."
More than she deserves, frankly. Man's a mess, but at least he tries. She's been chilling in a swamp and pulling puppet strings for ages and abusing her kids. Nudging history like it's some sort of hobby, because it has always just been pieces on a board to her. They have never been people in her eyes like they are in his.
"As am I, old friend."
Aye, get tae fuck. Friends don't treat friends the way you treated Solas. The closest thing to an apology Solas will ever get from her is that she pretty much just lies down and dies when he comes to kill her. And she still won't set him free before he does. Has to continue to twist her own knife.
This scene has me riled.
And this takes us back to the beginning of this post.
To her essence showing up to release him from her service.
In what is, to me, the least accountable, bare minimum non-apology (she never actually says she's sorry) I've had the displeasure to witness in a videogame, with Solas literally cowering before her and offering her a knife to kill him with since this is the first time he's seen her actual, non-Flemythal face since she died.
This was never a friendship of equals. Ever.
She got one thing right. She did break him. But she knew it all this time, and she never took a single step to put it right until pushed. Her corner of the Crossroads, which he built for her in the desperate hope that she would show a glimmer of the friend he believed she was, notably has a pair of wolf statues. Both beheaded.
She's spent all this time punishing him further.
He never went to visit her? I wouldn't either. I could not blame him.
This has gone to an angry place. So let's conclude with what is, I think, the entire point.
Grace.
"I lied. I betrayed you."
"I forgive you."
Has anyone--anyone--in all his long life, ever said those words to him?
I'll say that again: has anyone--ANYONE--in all his millennia of existence, EVER said those words to him?
I forgive you.
Mythal certainly didn't.
The world certainly didn't.
He has shouldered all the blame of an entire pantheon, a war that broke the world, a blight, everything, always, and while people have come alongside him to help him, I am not sure anyone (certainly not anyone he cares about) has given him the grace of forgiveness.
The beauty of this final scene for me wasn't just Ilaana, wasn't just Ilaana reuniting with the man she has loved for a decade who has spent all that time pushing her away so he couldn't--in his mind--inevitably poison the love of the only person who has seen his spirit and cherished it without twisting him.
It was the slow realisation that Rook trusted his love enough to try.
It was Morrigan, who carries all Mythal's memories and her own of Flemythal's abuse and machinations, who responds to Rook's question about her views of Solas with: "Or do you mean to discover if I would stand directly against the Dread Wolf, were there a need? I shall aid you in any way but that. What has passed between Solas and Mythal...I beg you: do not ask this of me again."
Morrigan knows. She will not raise a hand against him. She will not try to stop him. She will let the veil fall. She will not fight with Rook. Because she knows this being whose memories she holds has harmed him enough.
Solas, in these final moments, even before Mythal shows up to gut punch him, realises all these people have somehow, somehow, banded together to help him.
Not work for him.
Not be his agents.
Not worship him.
Not follow him blindly.
To help him. To help Solas. To help him, after all this time, take the first steps towards himself. Towards his own essence, so long twisted into something he never sought or wanted.
The Inquisitor and Morrigan certainly understand what it's like to be seen only as the symbol others raise in your image. Rook will learn that someday, but is still naive.
But even with that naivete, willing. Present. Able to put aside being a chess piece on his board. Able to see that they would never have succeeded without his help. Able to trust two people who know him better than they ever will.
Able to offer him grace.
And when they produce Mythal's essence, how that must brutalise him; to think that perhaps all this has been to let his abuser kill him back. He clearly thinks that's what's happening. He breaks. He fawns. He offers her the blade that has caused so much pain.
Her release of him is the bare minimum she owes him. I've already railed about that.
What is transcendent here, transformative--it is the mortals.
The mortals offering grace to a god who never wanted to be a god.
It's them together showing him a way out of an endless cycle of trauma and abuse. No one of them alone is enough. Without Rook, they wouldn't have Mythal's essence; Morrigan can't go get it, and she can't do what is needed because she's not actually Mythal, only has her memories. Without Morrigan, who can stand there with those memories but from the compassionate perspective of someone who has watched them in horror from the outside. She's far from objective, but she can do this one thing to help.
Without the Inquisitor (romanced or not, still someone he let know him as he most desperately wanted to be known--the Fade-walker, the Dreamer, the humble mage who desperately needed a friend). The Inquisitor, who kneels before him to comfort him. Who sees his hurt and responds.
If romanced, without Lavellan, who kneels to repeat back words he once shouted at the Nightmare in the Fade after Adamant.
"Dirth ma, harellan. Ma banal enasalin. Mar solas ema mar din." (Speak, traitor. Your victory was fruitless. Your pride gives way only to your death.)
To which Solas replied, "Banal nadas."
On the surface, nothing is inevitable, but can also be taken to mean that nothingness is inevitable, entropy, the final void. (Thanks to Dumped, Drunk, and Dalish for this excellent long post on this scene.)
And here is Lavellan, kneeling beside him with those words. "Banal nadas ar lath, ma vhenan."
Nothing is inevitable but the love we share, my heart.
I see everything you are, all you have done, and I love you. I forgive you for the pain you have caused me. I understand, see, and forgive.
No one has ever shown him grace like this.
Ever.
And Solas, this shattered man, sobs.
He sobs.
Someone has taken the trouble to isolate his voice in the video. This man has nothing left. And, after millennia of this trauma cycle repeating over and over, he is finally free to make the choice he wants to make. It's not the outcome he wants; that has to be said. He doesn't want to leave the veil up. He doesn't want to be bound into prison forever with no hope of seeing the world he fought for ever return.
But he is done.
In the Fade after Adamant, there is a cemetery with the worst fears of every companion scriven on shrines and stones. Solas's is dying alone.
After all of this, he is willing to face just that--and would, if not for her.
She knows his deepest fears. She has faced the demon Mythal made of the man she loves. She has given unwitting comfort to the spirit of Wisdom still within. She has seen his sweetest self. Nurtured him, cherished him, and has been nurtured and cherished in return.
Does she want to leave the world behind and spend eternity in a Fade prison? Probably not her first choice. It's not my Ilaana's; she has been on his side all this time, dreaming of a world where the spirits she loves can be reunited with the world in peace and ready to make that happen.
But it was not supposed to happen this way. It did happen this way anyway.
He has sacrificed everything--everything--including his own spirit self, his soul, his life. How could she not offer him what no one ever has? A friend forever, a lover willing to walk the din'an shiral by his side, a companion to ward off the forever alone.
Together, the two of them can begin to heal, with their counterpart who has always seen through the burdens of the world to the soul within.
This is the only thing I've ever had any faith in.
Grace
I know you carry us
Grace
And it was such a mess
Grace
I don't say it enough
Grace
You are so loved
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I love the idea of little spirits gathering around their little dwelling in the fade like mice. And them having the grand idea to experiment with them Prometheus-style…
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