Inquisition's "Bad Future" and its Relationship to Solas' POV
please do not add hate to this post, bring up the art book, or bring up the books/comics. thank you!
if you decide to recruit the mages to help seal the breach, then the inquisitor and dorian will be plunged into a "bad future", going forward a year
there is no way to proceed without "resetting" the timeline, without putting it back to the moment that they were flung into the future. but during the bad future, leliana says - accurately - that while dorian and the inquisitor see this almost as a bad dream, a thing to be undone, that it was real. their hurt was real. their joy was real. they existed in that year
and we as players are made complicit in erasing the entirety of that existence
this puts us in solas' position! this shows us his fundamental perspective!
he woke a year before the events of inquisiton, to a world that he, too, felt needed to be "reset". like the inquisitor and dorian, he saw the current state of the world as an intolerable deviation from what should be, and was willing to sacrifice people - as the inquisitor and dorian did - in order to put it back on the right path
granted, the world was in great peril in this bad future. the inquisition itself was destroyed. maybe many of those in southern ferelden would have welcomed the chance to have this all "undone"...
but what of those beyond? somewhere, a child was born in that year, and then erased. not killed, to be remembered, but fully erased from the course of history, made into something that never existed. somewhere in the world, someone did something that meant a great deal to them or to others in that year: again, that action was erased. they cannot be remembered, it cannot be remembered, it is gone
so, did the world need to be reset? i mean... that was probably the safest bet, if you want the world itself/the cultures as a whole/the people as a whole to have the best chance of survival
which, again, is kinda solas' thing. he's not out here just mercilessly killing for its own sake. he openly resents having to kill anybody, even enemies, although resenting it has certainly not stayed his hand
solas thought it would be necessary, which is something i've talked about before:
Solas and Veilfall: Why it Was Necessary... Until it Wasn't
Solas and Veilfall; Not a Hero, Not a Selfish Monster
"People are always dying. It is what they do." (contains an analysis of this bad future timeline as well!)
and what he was doing was necessary - perhaps not all of it (was tearing down the veil necessary or desired? it's unclear!) - but certainly dealing with the evanuris was necessary. even flemythal, who discouraged him from tearing down the veil, admitted that dealing with the "gods" was a necessary action. even the veilguard believe that what solas did in the time of arlathan was just and right
in the bad magic future, we are solas. we are waking to a world rendered horrible, a miserable experience compared to that which we knew. but, really, what all do we see? redcliffe castle. we hear about more, but it's just hearsay. in-game, it clearly doesn't take more than a day to erase that year in its entirety
what if the corruption was contained? what if there was an effort being mounted against it, one which might have been successful? what if all that remained of ferelden and orlais had joined forces? what if the dwarves had regained their ancestral magic somehow? what if spirits freely interacted with the world outside of this area of prime corruption?
hell, put all that aside: what if the corruption was false? what if everything we experience in that bad future was the work of a demon, or of alexius himself? what if having the inquisitor and dorian "undo" what he had done was his final effort to save felix? what if he created a horrific showpiece that presented a nightmare as reality and forced them to change it back?
is any of that likely? probably not! but the thing is: the inquisitor and dorian do not and cannot know
just as solas did not and could not know... in the beginning!
had his initial plan succeeded, he would have been as willing as the inquisitor and dorian to take that step. as confident that, even with the costs, it was right, it was just, it was necessary
i'm pretty sure more people do the mage route than the templar route. but whatever the analytics may say, certainly many people have done the mage route and have played through this entire narrative, up to and including erasing it and then continuing on with the game
and, narratively, it prepares us for solas' announcement. and it draws a comparison between the inquisitor and dorian and solas himself
and the thing is... the inquisitor and dorian remember that. as two individuals opposed to solas in some manner in canon, they also have to carry forward the knowledge that, in somewhat similar circumstances, they made the choice that solas tried to make. it is entirely likely that they bury this awareness, that they cover it, that they try to forget... but their actions remain, and the unknown cost remains, even though it has been erased
