i saw the cursed child again today🆘 I didn’t plan to go, but my brain kept replaying the Scorbus hand-holding from yesterday, I just HAD TO see Sam’s Scorpius again. I only saw part two today, but I managed to take some videos!
FIRST OF ALL, THE HAND HOLDING:
THE HAND HOLDING. THE. HAND. HOLDING.
I was low key disappointed they didn’t do the adjusting tie thing today, but I WOULD LITERALLY JUST EAT ANY SCORBUS CRUMBS and this wasn’t crumbs, it was a WHOLE LOAF of bread. (good bread, nice bread - what’s wrong with bread?)
And oh god the way Albus smiled when he wrapped his arms around Scorpius😭and when he looked down and saw Scorpius holding his hand, he also smiled🥹 and Scorpius’s hand lingering on Albus’s when he turned to leave? Ugh. Our boys are so in love.
I still get weepy thinking of Solas and Lavellan. The more I think on them the more their stories continue to echo each other even more. I've talked about the mirrors that Solas and the Inquisitor are - but with Lavellan - it adds so much more.
Two elves buried beneath titles.
Two elves turned into symbols by others, until the person underneath becomes harder to see.
Two rebel elves standing against established orders.
Two elves who spend their lives trying to fix disasters they never intended to create.
Two elves forced to live with consequences of their actions that stretch across years.
Two elves who are seen as dangerous because of what they have become and what they can do.
Two elves who's lives change forever when they 'leave' the Fade.
Two elves who carry fragments of their lost civilization.
Two elves searching for home.
Two elves who sacrificed their bodies for the world.
...and all because each of them answered a call for help.
I think of the term vhenan as quite sacred a word - to me it has always felt like a declaration of commitment, like a vow. And so I researched the use of it in Thedas and found it was a very rare term indeed.
There are only three instances across Dragon Age where the term vhenan is used for someone.
Merrill to a romanced Hawke.
Solas to a romanced Lavellan and vice-versa (Lavellan is the only protagonist to use this term)
The spirit preserving Telana's memories crying out for Ameridan.
Sera never uses it for a romanced Inquisitor, Veilguard gives us two elven companions who don’t use it and even elven Rook never uses it for their LI. A non-elf Rook acts as though they have never heard of the term before when talking to a romanced Lavellan - so rare indeed.
And naturally my brain started looking for patterns between Merrill, Solas, and Telana (aside from all being mages and elves) and why, do they reserve it for only one person in their romanced narratives?
The first thing that stood out is that all three are stubborn people. Once they've decided something is worth pursuing, they're incredibly difficult to sway. Merrill obsessed with restoring the eluvian, Telana refusing to leave Ameridan and Solas spending years pursuing veilfall.
The second thing they share is that love and loyalty sit at the centre of many of their choices. None of them are primarily motivated by power, status, or personal gain. Their lives are shaped by devotion, whether that's to a person, a cause, their people, or a belief.
The third is their willingness to go it alone. Merrill becomes clanless and is willing to endure solitude for her goals. Telana dies alone searching for Ameridan. Solas repeatedly chooses paths that leave him apart from the people he cares about (ending the relationship with a romanced Lavellan to walk the din’anshiral).
Merrill, Telana, and Solas are all characters whose stories revolve around holding onto something despite great cost, and all three choose someone they remain devoted to through hardship, distance, pain, and time. (And yes, I include Solas in this. Even after years of separation, he writes to Lavellan, vows never to forget her, and slips right back into calling Lavellan vhenan.)
Considering vhenan is 'my heart' there is very strong symbolism. We may love many people throughout our lives, but we only have one 'heart' and it's required for living.
Solas seems most 'alive' when he's with Lavellan. Lavellan draws him into the present moment, out of the Fade and into the physical world, a world he’s trying to deny. Lavellan is someone who pulls Solas back toward living rather than merely existing or heading down a path of death. There is a second layer of symbolism as well: Solas refuses to let Lavellan witness what he will become. In a sense, it’s almost as though he leaves his heart behind for safekeeping, that Solas, who he wants to be, can remain beating with Lavellan.
When Ameridan disappears, Telana refuses to let him go. She waits, enters uthenera in the hope of finding him through dreams, and dies still searching for him. The heart is the organ that sustains life, and Telana spends her final days searching for the person she considers hers. She dies with her search unfinished, her body unable to live without her heart.
For Merrill the heart symbolism is a bit different, I think it lies in what a heart does. A heart sustains the body by continually sending blood through it. Hawke occupies a similar role in Merrill's life. Her ambitions, and pursuit of the eluvian remain unchanged, yet Hawke becomes woven through it, a constant presence that helps sustain the life she's chosen to live.
Merrill's use of the word is particularly interesting to me because she's one of the modern elven characters most invested in recovering the knowledge and traditions of ancient Elvhenan. She also recites In Uthenera, an elven ballad that contains one of the only other uses of vhenan in the series. Given her fascination with preserving the past, it feels fitting she'd use a word for Hawke that appears so rarely and carries significance.
For an ancient culture that was both spirit and form, there may have been few declarations more intimate and more sacred than telling another person: you are my heart. You are the thing that keeps me living in this biological form. In this sense, Solas' denial of Lavellan almost feels like a denial of himself, he regrets manifesting so much that to accept his love for Lavellan is also to accept the world and himself physically in it.
In all three cases, vhenan is given to someone who is so woven into the speaker's life despite distance, hardship, pain, or time. That's why the word feels sacred to me. Much like the heart itself, they have become so woven into the being of the person who bears them.
Note: When a term appears this rarely in officially written narratives, I can't help looking for patterns and symbolism in who uses it and why. Whether that was the writers' intent or not, those patterns become part of how I interpret the word and then integrate it into my own world state.
2nd Note: In Uthenera is about loss, mortality, separation, and the approach of death, which I find fascinating given that those same themes run through these 3 relationships associated with the word.
*Also if I'm missing any use of vhenan elsewhere in the universe please let me know.
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