the conversations between solas and varric drive me to insanity, i think they might be the longest consecutive, interconnected pieces of dialogue between any companions.
there are so many layers and so much back and forth pushing, so much being said without saying it. they explain so much about solas’ current state of mind, but also show the effects of what happened in da2 on varric
Solas: I find the fall of the dwarven lands confusing.
Varric: What’s so confusing about endless darkspawn?
Solas: A great deal, although that is a different matter. Dwarves control the flow of lyrium. They could tighten their grip on it.
Varric: It’s hard to get the attention of the humans when the darkspawn aren’t up here messing with their stuff.
Solas: You’re active in the Carta. You know your people could tug the purse strings. You could claim sovereign land on the surface, or demand help restoring the dwarven kingdom, but you don’t.
Varric: You’re not saying anything I haven’t said myself, Chuckles. Orzammar is what it is.
Solas: Is there at least a movement to reunite Orzammar and Kal-Sharok?
Varric: What is it with you, Chuckles? Why do you care so much about the dwarves?
Solas: Once, in the Fade, I saw the memory of a man who lived alone on an island. Most of his tribe had fallen to beasts or disease. His wife had died in childbirth. He was the only one left. He could have struck out on his own to find a new land, new people. But he stayed. He spent every day catching fish in a little boat, every night drinking fermented fruit juice and watching the stars.
Varric: I can think of worse lives.
Solas: How can you be happy surrendering, knowing it will all end with you? How can you not fight?
Varric: I suppose it depends on the quality of the fermented fruit juice.
Solas:: I am sorry to have bothered you with my questions about your people Varric. I see so much of this world in dreams. Humans, my own people, even qunari. Dwarves alone were lost to me, save scattered fragments of memory where some spirit cared to watch. Now I know why I see so little.
Solas:: Dwarves are the severed arm of a once mighty hero, lying in a pool of blood. Undirected. Whatever skill of arms it had, gone forever. Although it might twitch to give the appearance of life, it will never dream.
Varric: I’d avoid mentioning that to any Carta, Chuckles. They might not take it the right way.
Varric: What’s with you and the doom stuff? Are you always this cheery or is the hole in the sky getting to you?
Solas: I’ve no idea what you mean.
Varric: All the “fallen empire” crap you go on about. What’s so great about empires anyway?
Varric: So we lost the Deep Roads, and Orzammar is too proud to ask for help. So what? We’re not Orzammar and we’re not our empire.
Varric: There are tens of thousands of us living up here in the sunlight now, and it’s not that bad.
Varric: Life goes on. It’s just different than it used to be.
Solas: And you have no concept of what that difference cost you.
Varric: I know what it didn’t cost me. I’m still here, even after all those thaigs fell.
Solas: You truly are content to sit in the sun, never wondering what you could’ve been, never fighting back.
Varric: Ha, you’ve got it all wrong, Chuckles. This is fighting back.
Solas: How does passively accepting your fate constitute a fight?
Varric: In that story of yours—-the fisherman watching the stars, dying alone. You thought he gave up, right?
Varric: But he went on living. He lost everyone, but he still got up every morning. He made a life, even if it was alone.
Varric: That’s the world. Everything you build, it tears down. Everything you’ve got, it takes. And it’s gone forever.
Varric: The only choices you get are to lie down and die or keep going. He kept going. That’s as close to beating the world as anyone gets.
Solas: Well said. Perhaps I was mistaken.
Varric: You know what I like about you, Chuckles? Your boundless optimism.
Solas: It’s comforting that whatever qualities I lack, you’ll invent for me, Varric.
Varric: No, really. Why else would an elven apostate help crazy Chantry folk close a hole in the sky?
Solas: When you put it like that, I must concede your point.
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