Incomplete list of mods for Dragon Age: Veilguard I would love to have:
1. *spoiler* A mod to remove Varric's . Not the part where he got hurt, but rather the lines that confirm he died. His death doesn't really add anything to the game for be, but instead subtract a bit of fun for me.
2. *spoiler* A mod that removes aharing/Devrin's implied death. I would really like something that suggest that Harding gets "stone-napped".
3. A mod that gives any amount of nuance to scenes involving Solas. It is both annoying to really only be able to have the opinion he sucks, and that your whole team also just goes on about how much he sucks. It really takes away from the game for me.
āDATV is about hope and is escapistā then why is the story retroactively trying to paint Solas, the only person of the Evanuris who used his power and privilege to help end slavery and liberate the elves, as a prideful arrogant self-centered bastard who secretly loved being worshipped as a god when every single thing he has ever said and done contradicts those assumptions made by the Veilguard companions.
Oh Iām sorry, do you think slave rebellions can be accomplished through peaceful means? Through purely decentralized anarchist uprisings? Are we trying to argue that Solas didnāt rebel the ācorrect wayā? Are we trying to argue that Solas actually wanted to be worshipped as a god by those he freed. Solas, a man who wanted nothing more than to be a spirit of Wisdom and act as nothing more than an entity that would help people act and think mindfully?
The gameās dialogue for the companions tries to make it out like Solas enjoyed being a rebellion leader, rather than it being one of the most frustrating and agonizing and embittering experiences of his existence. The game is so clumsy that is seems to imply that Solas trying to do right by the elves with the rebellion was another mistake on his part, as if someone trying to fight for the rights of an oppressed people is something that is ever a mistake one could make.
Real liberal (derogatory) hours here. Even at your most uncharitableāSolas helped give the elves bodies and helped the Evanuris secure their powerāhe was trying to correct that mistake and was the only one of the Evanuris that was actively doing so. Mythal was dragging her ass the entire fucking time trying to be a fence-sitting centrist that thought you could actually parley and negotiate with slave owners. Oh but wait, Veilguard conveniently proves you can! Just look at Dorian! Apparently all you needed to dismantle centuries upon centuries of brutal inhumane slavery was a dandy saying āplease let the slaves goā and everything is all but resolved in ten fucking years. Solas, why didnāt you try taaaalking to the blood magic warmongering slave sacrificing Evanuris? Maybe things wouldāve gone better if youād just asked nicely š„ŗ
Veilguard tries to go the āSolas is corrupting into Prideā and they botched it so terribly. Solas is prideful, but the writers made him out like his problem was a secret vanity or desire for power. No, his problem was that he thought he was correct. That is a 100000% entirely different issue and it shows that the writers have no concept of nuance for psychology or even what Wisdom and even Pride are. And for people to swallow āWow Solas was just a power-hungry arrogant bastard all alongā is like reading Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee āthe abandoned prototype of To Kill a Mockingbird that was meant to remain an unused manuscriptāand thinking that is the real story and everything established in TKaM about Atticus Finch was just smoke and mirrors. Like come the fuck on.
Solasās issue is that as a mortal he is inundated with mortal feelings that interfere with the purity of Wisdom. All mortals have levels of dignity and pride that are inextricably linked and mutually dependent to their recognition of their own personhood. Self-esteem, if you will. Wisdom is the act of deliberating and determining and enacting the bestāmost morally correct, most benign, most benign, most āgoodāācourse of action in a scenario based on an aggregation of information and experiences. Solasās āPrideā and biggest flaw is that he believes his judgments are the most objectively correct or best because this guy has spent tens of thousands of years watching and observing and experiencing people make the same mistakes over and over, behave in similar cyclical predictable ways in matters of love, power, violence, hatred, greed, tyranny, cruelty, ignorance, oppression, pride, grief, etc. Because Wisdom is derived from being able to apply knowledge and history and experience to solve a present problem, Solas naturally thinks heās no spring chicken to all this and that heās got a better grasp than most. Where Wisdom turns into Pride is the nature of the mortal mind, which for many likes to rely on rules of thumb and shortcuts and patterns to solve issues. While this is present in the dissemination of Wisdom, the flipside is that it can leave one vulnerable to stubbornness and partiality to oneās viewpoint regardless of new developments. Again, the mortal mind likes shortcuts because it saves time. Puzzling out whether this person or that scenario is truly uniquely unique every single time, wastes time. This is how presumptions and stereotypes arise. That Solas could only observe modern Thedas through what was reflected in the Fade gave him a half-understanding of people. That he chose to develop a resentment toward the Dalish after one bad encounter and remain detached from other races before joining the Inquisition meant he had fallen prey to these intellectual pitfalls, which is the result of his mortal nature interfering with his Wisdom nature.
Solas has never wanted to rule over people. He has never once wanted to be worshipped even at his most manipulative and Machiavellian. He wants to sit under a tree in the summer and discuss idly whether fire could be considered alive and if good requires evil to exist and the pros and cons of allowing collective memory to remain unchallenged.
Like of all things, the butchering of Solasās character pisses me off to no end. Dislike him if you want, hate him if you want, but donāt for a second try to misconstrue that his problem is that he has secret aspirations for godhood. Does he think ancient elves are a superior race? There are definitely indications. But he doesnāt think of himself as someone to be worshipped by anyone, least of all other elves. Very huge distinction.
Actually I think one of the reasons why this game is so awful to get through is how it treats abuse, abusers, and abuse victims.
Under cut due to length of rambling:
First of all, Morrigan. Abused as a child by her mother, Flemeth aka Mythal, learned about the world and how to interact with it in a skewed way. Was treated in a way that no child should be by anyone let alone their parent.
Fast forward to Inquisition, particularly a worldstate in which Kieran is alive. The scene in the fade where Morrigan confronts Flemythal is one of the most important and special scenes in all of dragon age to me.
Growing up through abuse as a child you never think "I don't deserve this", you mainly think things like "Why is this happening to me?" and "Bad things happen to me." You know that these things are bad and make you feel bad, but when your baseline for how you should experience the world is abusive, you don't have the point of reference to think otherwise. And then you grow up. You look back on the abuse through the eyes of the child who experienced it but also through the detached, adult view that you currently have and have to reconcile the two. It's not easier nor pleasant. Getting to the age your abuser was/getting into the position of power your abuser had over you is difficult. Being at that stage and picturing yourself doing what was done to you to someone else is fucking sickening, and then you start to realize "I wasn't the problem, it WASN'T my fault, YOU are the one that's fucked up." But a lot of people can't and therefore the cycle of abuse continues.
But Morrigan does. She straight up tells her abuser "I will not be the mother you were to me." To have a character who survived childhood abuse be able to reach a point in their life where they can take back their personhood from their abuser is pretty damn important, actually. To this day I get weepy just thinking about it.
And then fucking veilguard happened.
Not only does it not matter if Kieran is alive or if Morrigan drank from the well (something that would BIND HER SPIRIT TO HER ABUSER), but Morrigan straight up let Mythal hitch a ride in her. The very thing that Morrigan tried to prevent ever since the first goddamn game? And we're all just supposed to accept and be ok with this?
The only way I can see this not being a complete character assassination of Morrigan is if Mythal just straight up possessed her unwillingly/killed her. Have Mythal use Morrigan as a information receptacle for new players, but also use old players' already-implemented relationship with her as a way to manipulate them. Either way, shit sucks.
Then there's the Crows. You know, the guild who takes children from brothels, orphanages, the streets and puts them through Hunger Games levels of training in which they either die or survive to become a slave assassin for the rest of their life. Not in veilguard. We're all just one big happy family. We rule Antiva, yippee!
Finally, there's Solas. One could argue his entire existence is the product of abuse, and everything that has happened in Thedas is because of it. I think framing his regrets as physical manifestations that want to kill him is a really interesting narrative choice. Unlocking the regret murals was one of the very few parts of this game that invoked a strong emotional response from me, not just because I'm an unapologetic Solas Enjoyer but because the implications are heartbreaking.
And then the game has you sit through the most fucking unbearable CBT group therapy session to talk about them with some of the most annoying damn people in Thedas who treat the literal apocalyptic levels of abuse Solas went through for millennia as something like a joke? And we the player are not given the option to challenge this? This game makes the point to force the player to agree with the flippant attitudes brought up from this.
Then brings up the final scene with Solas. Do I think the meeting with Mythal and Solas was handled well? Yes and no, but that's for another time. Solas is so far in the trenches of the trauma of abuse that he will not stop until his abuser pretty much tells him "I'm done abusing you." I think this was good and bad, again another time.
The way Solas interacts with his abuser is the direct flipside of how Morrigan does. You see more than one way someone can heal/not heal from it.
Morrigan, someone with arguable little power in the world, stands up against her abuser unflinchingly.
Solas, described through history as a GOD, someone with unfathomable amounts of knowledge and power, cowers and offers his abuser a literal weapon to kill him with, unprompted.
If this was a good game, it would be about regret but also about survivor's guilt, something that those who survived abuse have to deal with for the rest of their lives. But it's not, because it's a a bad game.
Anyone else decide that Varric totally didn't die? I am 100% convinced Hawke popped out of the fade and dragged Varric to their secret hideout to recover.
elementary may have been copaganda but they were really onto something with their version of holmes he's autistic. he's a sub. he's canonically into bondage. he's a recovering addict. he keeps bees. he's tattooed AND hairy. his posture is insane. he texts in a near-undecipherable string of abbreviations and acronyms. he's the most irritating man in new york city. he's even aromantic
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