I know how you feel about Solas, what's your take on Anders? On Blackwall? your opinion will determine whether I block you jk
Hoo boy this is gonna be a long one, strap in Anon.
I'll be honest, most of my anger with Solas comes from the wasted potential in his character. This could have been a really great villain character but he has all the charisma of wet toast and while this is subjective, I feel like I'm not SUPPOSED to be put off by his condescension, I feel like I'm SUPPOSED to think he's some wise and mysterious being and the writing just never hits its mark.
I dislike Anders for different reasons but I dislike him the right way.
Anders is a character who does things that don't sit well with me and he frequently challenges my willingness to help him. There was a point where I was on board with Anders and I even agree with his cause but he just crosses too many lines for me. the incident where he killed a girl and was going to go to her funeral and tell her grieving parents that it was the templars was one. The way he talks to Fenris and Merrill also got to me. The way he used Hawke to blow up the chantry was probably the worst thing he did.
I don't agree with the destruction of the Kirkwall chantry for several reasons. The biggest of which is that I don't care how just your cause might be you have NO right to martyr someone else for it. Your rights stop at other people's lives and safety. Anders blew up the chantry because he wanted to start the Mage Rebellion. he did that because he wanted to push Meredith to call for the right of Anullment and kill the Kirkwall mages so that other Mages through out Thedas would be enraged enough to fight back. That is absolutely disgusting to me. Sacrificing innocent people for your cause is too much. To make it even worse Anders flat out LIES to Hawke to get Hawke to help him build the bomb.
Let that sink in, even if Hawke is his significant other, he manipulates them into helping him build his bomb under the pretense that it's going to cure him of his possession by the spirit of Justice.
This is even worse if Hawke is romancing him because what kind of person does that to someone they love?
Who puts that kind of blood on their lovers hands and is completely ok with letting them live the rest of their lives knowing that they were used that way? That is a huge abuse of trust. That is a real betrayal. Solas, at least, keeps you at arms length and can't even bring himself to be intimate with LLavellen while he's plotting his whole schtick. Anders has no such scruples, he moves in with Hawke and they have a whole life together that Anders was willing to take full advantage of. My god, that is despicable.
I love how much drama and angst you can wring out of that.
I hate Anders but I hate him in-game which is different from how I hate Solas on a much more meta level.
As for Blackwall, who is another controversial character. I actually like him, a lot. He did something really terrible, and not just some softball easily dismissed thing, he killed children...out of greed, there's no way you can make that less awful. Then he ran away and impersonated a warden, and to be fair he was trying to join the Wardens legitimately as a means of penance for what he did, he just ran into some shit luck and his Warden commander got killed before he could join. Then he stole his dead Commander's identity... yeah, that's all pretty bad.
So why do I like him? Because he does one thing neither Solas nor Anders do: he tries to atone. Blackwall is genuinely repentant and his whole arc is how he tries to make it right and if you redeem him he goes on to spread that grace, that mercy, out to other condemned souls. That's amazing. Of all the characters in DA I think Blackwall is the most deeply affected by the Inquisitor and he actually seeks to become a better person thanks to their example. I respect people who can't get past what Blackwall did, but I think his character arc is probably my favorite in DA:I