a blog for hating solas from dragon age inquisition.

hes just bad!

[allisondraste]

Wait, wait, wait. I might just not be able to process this right now because there's been a lot to process in general lately, but what was that about the consent for SolasxInquisitor? I get power imbalance is a HUGE thing, so is that what it was about? Is it more complicated than that? Or am I just overthinking it? Completely possible since this just completely shook me.

Hi there dearest anon and apologies for taking forever to respond! I am very glad you asked me this question because I had already resigned myself to chafe about this internally since I figure I am in a select minority of people who feel the way I do about this particular topic; however, you’ve given me a reason to dust off the soapbox and talk about the issue that is consent in Solavellan.

Full disclosure: I love Solas and Solavellan. It is my favorite DA:I romance. However, sometimes our faves are problematic and it’s something we have think about when writing to make sure we are conveying the right messages.

For anyone who does not know, this ask is in response to a series of tweets from Patrick Weekes discussing how there was originally a Solavellan sex scene, but it was removed due to “consent issues.” While this was definitely a smart move, it stirred up some old, old feelings regarding how Solavellan is written.

Anon, you are definitely correct in referencing the power imbalance as an issue (which I will address more fully in a bit); however, I think the key issue Weekes was referencing is Solas’ deception. Lavellan believes that Solas is Solas, and the question becomes “Would she still consent to having sex if she knew his true identity?” The answer is largely unknown, which would make the consent dubious at best. Consent is not truly consent unless it is informed (just ask any legal, medical, or mental health professional!)

With that comes the argument: “But Lady Quiz can have sex with Blackwall before learning his identity. What’s the difference?” And that is where the power differential and character growth come into play. Unlike Blackwall, who is beneath the Inquisitor in rank, Solas is the great adversary of her people’s lore.

Even if, hypothetically, his status as a god did not create a power issue, then the way Solas and Lavellan are written in context of one another would. Although I don’t and never have read Solas as arrogant (he’s just knowledgeable and people keep ignoring him), he is coded so that you only get approval if you ask him questions (unless they are about him) or if you agree with him. He’s painted as always “right,” even when his viewpoints are questionable. As one of my friends said in a discord conversation about this, “There is no way [with the way it is written] that Lavellan could consent on equal footing.” Such an imbalance leads to a high potential for coercive influence, even if unintentional.

Is any of this sounding out of character for Solas? I certainly think it does, and this is what shook me in reading the tweets. I came to realize that this whole issue is simply the result of careless handling of Solas and his relationship with Lavellan (No offense, Mr. Weekes), and it could have easily been avoided with tweaks to Solas’s approval system and in Lavellan’s responses to him. Let her stand her ground! Let him be impressed that she did so! In my own [deluded] opinion, Solas would admire someone who opposed him with well-reasoned arguments.

With all of that being said, I think that it is easy for one’s perception of Solas to be warped from the grey area that is the truth due to his representation in fandom. Fanon Solas is largely dominant and predatory even (I.e the wolf/halla, hahren/da’len dynamic). Don’t get me wrong, power play can be fun, but that is only in the context of an established and consenting relationship.

It is not fun and not sexy to be coerced into doing something that you aren’t comfortable with, because you feel like you cannot say no. It is also not fun or sexy to find out that your partner is who they said they were after you have been intimate with them. Informed, enthusiastic, and uncoerced consent is sexy.

I guess, to answer the original question a little more clearly and concisely, because those were a lot of words I just used, the consent issues are both the deception and the power imbalance. The reason that I am so shook, as you are anon, is that the relationship seems to have been written this way on purpose. There need not have been consent issues. Those could have been resolved with responsible and thoughtful writing of the relationship, but that’s not what happened. I’m so happy they removed the scene, but it’s so frustrating that it was even an issue in the first place.

[dgcatanisiri]

Inquisition repeatedly shows Solas underestimating the people of Thedas. The whole game hinges on the fact that he didn’t anticipate Corypheus having the ability to survive unlocking the Anchor. So much of the game uses ‘he underestimated others’ as a basic point.

He is a font of INFORMATION. Pure fact. But when it comes to application, he sees people act of their own volition and with their own motivations, and he’s completely blown out of the water. This is NOT a sinister chessmaster capable of playing five moves ahead of everyone. He’s mapped out his game, how he expects his opponent to react, and then struggles to hold his strategy together when his opponent makes a different move.

[gayvakarian-deactivated20240719]

Solas: talks about the fade, shows empathy and respect to spirits, has an interest in the history of magic, etc.

me: :)

Solas: starts saying some dumb shit

me: 🔪

[bunabi]

When I first played Dai, I was 16 I think and I remember not liking Viv because I was like “PRO MAGE NO CIRCLE NO RESTRAINTS” and didn’t understand the complexity of the politics, religion, power etc in the game. I replayed it this year, I’m 20 now, and I fell in love with Vivienne. She’s so kind and passionate and smart. She gives great advice to your stinky inexperienced inquisitor cont.

Sorry this is lengthy! But, I love her opinions on mages and circles alike. I also do like Solas’ character and ended up romancing him. But It makes me frustrated to see the Solasmancer archetype hating on Viv. Because… Solas is extremely wrong with a very large and CATASTROPHIC “opinion” of his. But y’know oWo his voice is nice

Gareth David Lloyd did a really good job voicing him. I’ve nothing but praise for his performance. Still might not touch DA4, but I’m glad they’re cutting him another check lol.

Vivienne was far from my favorite on my first playthrough — I just wanna emancipate everybody and I don’t care about the ramifications — but that’s the one good thing about DA:I. All it takes is a slightly different chain of events, a few different patterns of choices, and your endgame relationships can shift.

On my second run I was able to better connect with Vivienne, and she was super cool once I chiseled past the red herrings, discovered which missions she favored, and she opened up about the future she wanted for mages. 🤷🏿‍♀️

It’s difficult to get to know Vivienne while playing Inquisition the same way, with the same protagonist, chasing the same choices to max the approval of the same love interest. Maybe that’s why she keeps coming up in Solavellan circles. And I don’t say that to be rude; I’m obviously very attached to my Lavellan too so I understand lol. If you play one character too long you miss out on the bigger picture. I wish folks would lighten up their tunnel vision a bit and realize this.

It’s even more frustrating because a handful of fans consistently harp up and down about loving characters with complex motivations and backbone and problematic intentions. But all that miraculous sympathy & open-mindedness disappears when it’s Viv. I’ve seen folks say the nastiest things about Vivienne — some truly horrible stuff when they’re off tumblr & among friends — yet wilt and cry crocodile tears at jokes made at Solas’ expense. It’s ludicrous.

At the end of the day we’re each gonna hate and love and interpret characters as we wish. I just wish we could all act like normal well-adjusted adult people about it. 

In closing, if you don’t wanna read walls of text: everybody relax and stan Sten!

[ohmygodlenny-deactivated2021071]

Major pet peeve is that low approval Solas might say “You could order Halamshiral returned to the Dalish, but you won’t because *blah blah blah.” NO, SOLAS, I CAN’T. Where’s that wartable mission, Bioware??? Where’s my “The Dales belong to the Dalish” DLC? Don’t make suggestions I can’t act on!

[dragonageconfessions]

CONFESSION:

I’ve never understood why so many people say that they’re hoping Merrill shows up in DA4 to call Solas’ lies out and help defeat him, when it’s literally been shown in-game how dedicated she is to holding onto the little bits of the elvhen left, such as the eluvian, and also to recovering past/lost knowledge. Wouldn’t she be more likely to buy into what Solas is saying about restoring the ancient elves, since they’re so important to her? Like yeah she wouldn’t want any of her friends to die or anything as a result of the veil being torn down, but we’ve also seen how far she’ll go (making a deal with a demon, blood magic, being kicked out of her clan, potentially destroying her clan) just to hold onto the eluvian and restore it. Don’t get me wrong, it would be great to see her again, I just don’t understand where the idea that she’ll be against Solas comes from.

[dgcatanisiri]

Maybe, but Solas has actively reclaimed the title of the Dread Wolf, Fen’Harel. For the Dalish, this is the closest they have for a devil figure, he is the reason that the Dalish gods have been trapped and locked away for millennia, and that tends to be connected to much around the fall of ancient elven civilization. To the Dalish, Fen’Harel is some combination of Loki and Lucifer, a trickster god who committed an act of great evil against the other gods and the people who worshipped them. That makes him both a dark figure in the mythology that Merrill holds dear AND someone who that same mythology tells her not to trust.

For a Dalish who remembers these things, like a Keeper’s apprentice, like Merrill is and has been, that makes him not someone she would trust, believe, or work with - why would a devout Dalish suddenly start believing the words of her faith’s devil figure over a lifetime of seeing him as the bad guy in her mythology? Because this is the bad guy in everything she was brought up to believe. He’d have to lie about his motives (which would lead to her ultimately turning on him) or have to put in the time and effort to get her specifically to join him, in such a way that would surely make her suspicious, because why would she be so important to the Dread Wolf?

And, on the out of universe side of things, Merrill fans are kinda pissed at BioWare for framing her decisions and attitudes in DA2 in a negative light, talking about her like she is a naive child who needs Hawke to rival her so she will give up her foolish quest about the eluvian (so having a member of a dominant society convince someone of a culture and society who the aforementioned dominant society is seen as responsible for ripping to shreds that she needs to give up this effort to restore something of that tattered culture), only to then turn around in Inquisition and have Solas say similar things and be framed as wise and knowledgeable and an expert. So the idea becomes turning that narrative around - “Oh, am I supposed to be the naive one when I’ve seen through your deceptions, know exactly what you plan to do, and can act against you? Sorry, not my intention here, suck on a fireball, and feel the wrath of the scorned Dalish you dismissed as fools.”

[sleepingfancies]

Sometimes I think about how Bioware developers said "we wanted Solas to look wise and we just couldn't make that work with our concept =) " and I twitch every time bc like... what does that even mean? That a brown man with dreads inherently can't be wise? Old white bald men are the only wise people around? I mean like. It fits in the end and I can't be too mad bc Solas is a racist who wants the world to go back in time to when Things Were Better, but still. It's the principle of the thing

[solas-hate-blog]

HEY

we got an ask about if we were interested in someone’s solas hate writing, and although our askbox is still broken as hell and i lost the ask, the answer is Yes! you can always send us shit, submissions, messages, or otherwise. give us your solas bashing content and we will promote it.

[goblin-gardens]

i forgot how awful the solas high-aproval scene is with an adaar

adaar’s not like other qunari? adaar’s worthy of respect and you’re so fuckin shocked? oh, that’s right. all qunari are “savage creatures, their ferocity held in check only by the rigid teaching of the qun.” it’s totally impossible that a vashoth have “subtly and wisdom” and it’s probably because that magic beach ball of yours changed the essence of their personhood, you’re totally right

and telling him he’s wrong just gets you “i know more about you and your culture than you do because faaaaade” “my racism is totally justified but also you’re special and i totally respect you”

okay, asshole

[pathfinderlittleduck]

GOD FUCKING MOOD.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

What really showcases Solas’ flaws in viewpoint here, is that he doesn’t look at the -person- before him, he looks at their species. Adaar has never been -near- the Qun or Qunari, but to Solas they are still one. Heck, his constant implications that Varrick and other surface dwarves aren’t preserving their (underground) culture when surface dwarves already have their own. Or his trolling of Sera about the Fade, which she is naturally uncomfortable with. This just kinda showcases -why- he wants to press the cosmic reset button. Because he cannot accept that people -move on- from old ways sometimes. Sera, Varrick and Adaar aren’t defined by their species, but who they are. But Solas can’t see it clearly. Mind, this isn’t bad writing, this is good writing showcasing -why- Solas ends up as the antagonist.

[gayvakarian-deactivated20240719]

sometimes I’m glad that Solas is there to help explain wtf is going on with the fade but most of the time I just want to spit directly in his face

[kissingagrumpygiant]

she’s so tired 

[bunabi]

Sten is the anti-Solas. He handles being in a foreign setting and adjusting to a new culture and language waaaay better than eggboi did.

egg-xactly!!

[elvhenmage]

solas to lavellan: you honor the past and work to recover what was lost, even if the cost is high. i respect that.

also solas: but fuck the dalish, right?

[dalishious]

Okay, so I love Solas, but this piece-o-poo requests "Dalish Myths and Truths Against" in his list of book requests. I get that he's trying to piece together what is known in this world about the ancient elves and what not, but I also know that he and I need to fight.

“Dalish Myth and Collected Truths Against, collected by Sister Petrine”

Oh yes, Solas. Please do take the word of Sister Petrine over actual Dalish elves. I’m sure if we look at other pieces of her writing about elves from other codex entries, we will see she is a very unbiased scholar. 

When the holy Exalted March of the Dales resulted in the dissolution of the elven kingdom, leaving a great many elves homeless once again, the Divine Renata I declared that all lands loyal to the Chantry must give the elves refuge within their own walls. Considering the atrocities committed by the elves at Red Crossing, this was a great testament to the Chantry’s charity. There was one condition, however–the elves were to lay aside their pagan gods and live under the rule of the Chantry.

Some of the elves refused our goodwill. They banded together to form the wandering Dalish elves, keeping their old elven ways–and their hatred of humans–alive. To this day, Dalish elves still terrorize those of us who stray too close to their camps. Most of the elves, however, saw that it was wisest to live under the protection of humans.

And so we took the elves into our cities and tried to integrate them. We invited them into our own homes and gave them jobs as servants and farmhands. Here, in Denerim, the elves even have their own quarter, governed by an elven keeper. Most have proven to be productive members of society. Still, a small segment of the elven community remains dissatisfied. These troublemakers and malcontents roam the streets causing mayhem, rebelling against authority and making a general nuisance of themselves.–From Ferelden: Folklore and History, by Sister Petrine, Chantry scholar

“And then came an attack by the elves on the defenceless village of Red Crossing. The Chantry replied with the Exalted March of the Dales, and the era of the elven kingdom came to an end. Halamshiral was utterly destroyed, the elves driven out, scattered, left to survive on goodwill alone.”–From Ferelden: Folklore and History, by Sister Petrine, Chantry scholar.

Oh wait. 

[futha-deactivated20201005]

da4 mood

solas has no rights. solas is NOT protected under the inquisition. if you are solas i WILL find you and then you will be sorry buster. unfollow me right fucking now of you are solas, have ever been solas, or ever will be solas. this is not a joke. please leave.

[eorzean-cabbage]

me knowing full well DA4 gonna be about Solas anyway:

[dalishious]

Amaris and Solas did not get off on a good foot…

“Please talk elven stuff with me there are humans everywhere and I am scared.” “You’re so Dalish” //uppity sniff

(The thing that most gets me though, is when he says he doesn’t think city elves would benefit from hearing their history. Because I played the Tabris origin and those children who don’t know a single story with an elven hero breaks my heart every time. I think it just goes to show how truly out of touch he is, yet pretends otherwise as part of his façade.)