vivienne : mythal | leliana : solas
under the cut are the ppl who want to be @'d in my meta! lmk if u ever want to be added to this list btw~
vivenne and leliana make for radically different divines, and mythal and solas make for radically different leaders
we see in vivienne a woman who is eminently, personally aware of the injustices mages face. hers is a view deeply rooted in canon reality: mages are dangerous. mages have extraordinary power, power that — untrained — can be released accidentally in devastating ways. but while mages might be literally empowered, they are socially, culturally, and politically disempowered, oppressed and abused
we see that she is aware of the abuses and believes they need to be addressed. but her solution to the circles having problem is not dissolution of the circles, but an attempt to repair a broken system. essentially, her approach is rooted in harm reduction rather than revolution
dai explores harm reduction in a different context, too: the banter between sera and solas about the red jennies also addresses why the jennies do not seek to usurp or replace the ruling class. to do so would create new rulers, who may then become corrupted themselves. by staying as they are, they instead function as a reminder to the current rulers that they are not entirely above reprisal
and while tevinter is in many ways flawed and corrupt, it also presents an alternative: circles not as prisons but as academies. while she — wisely — does not bring tevinter into the conversation, vivienne is clearly pushing for the circles to go more in that direction. she has attended multiple circles, some of which were considerably less brutal and more academic, so she has also experienced some of the better circles and knows that they are possible to enact
she is also aware that the mage-templar conflict and the dissolution of the circles led to mass conflict. it led to deaths. it led to destruction. mages were killed, templars were killed, tranquil were killed, bystanders were killed. and knowledge itself was destroyed
i draw a comparison here between her and mythal, because i think they both embody this political ideology. granted, there is much of mythal's rule we do not know, and some that we can only reasonably infer. but solas was openly a revolutionary, a rebel, and mythal did not join him, even as she never entirely turned from him (or he from her). mythal also continued to participate as an evanuris, as an actor within the very system that solas was seeking to dismantle
acknowledging right now solas' inherent bias around mythal, we hear from him in trespasser and see through his memories in the lighthouse that she valued the elvhen people, a claim which is also supported by dalish legend and older sentiments found in-game
in arlathan, mythal sought to stop the war between the titans and the evanuris: this was a brutal protectiveness over the elvhen and/or her fellow evanuris. later, on solas' word, she went to confront the evanuris for using the blight and was killed for it
flemythal encourages the wardens to face the threat of the blight, saving them from certain death on the tower. later, she saves hawke's family, what remains of it. and during inquisition, she confronts morrigan
then we meet the aspect that has been sealed away for so long in the crossroads, an aspect ultimately willing to yield her essence — her entire, core self — to rook, a near-stranger, so long as rook can prove that they have what it takes to confront the evanuris with at least a chance of victory
through all this, we see that, yes, mythal is manipulative and cunning, occupying something of a chessmaster role throughout history. we see that she is willing to be incredibly brutal to protect her own. and we see that — like solas, in this way — she is more concerned with the end results than with a moral path to them
but we also that she tries to shift within existing systems rather than destroy and replace them. while they operate on different scales, i think it is reasonable to say that vivienne and mythal each employ this harm reduction stance. not only for the lives of people, but for knowledge itself, something which is often destroyed during massive upheavals
the point about knowledge being destroyed is not hypothetical or minor, but canonical and significant. vivienne mourns the destruction of specialized knowledge kept by the circles, priceless tomes either destroyed or in the hands of bandits. and we likely see mythal's hand in morrigan's emphasis on the preservation of knowledge. we also see how solas' method destroyed an ancient library. unintentionally, of course, but the destruction that stems from radical change is inherently unpredictable. such upheaval can damage both the present and the past even as it seeks to better the future, through destroying elements of history and knowledge
i've already touched on how solas differs from mythal, but leliana as divine differs from vivienne in a very similar way. her rule is deeply revolutionary and full of massive changes done quickly. she is focused on creating a just world, one where no one is kept out of the chantry based on their race, where circles are not rebuilt, where the chant of light is restored to once again reference shartan, an elf
leliana as divine and solas as the rebel dread wolf employ a strongly revolutionary approach. in both cases, their efforts — meant to improve the world, to make something better — put those they are trying to aid at risk. but for both of them, the opportunity to create something which is fundamentally better is worth the risk, even the death, that the change will create
now, of course, radical restructuring does not have a guaranteed outcome. we see this with solas' efforts. and of all the divines, the epilogue slides only show a tiny portion of their rule, yet even in that tiny portion we can see that leliana's leadership is provocative, to say the least
in some ways, the events of veilguard may have spared thedas the consequences of the rule of the southern divine. leliana's rule is hugely disruptive at theological, cultural, social, political, and even economic levels, and i could easily see religious splinter groups arising from the chaos
this is not to say she's incapable of navigating such complexity. i think her experience as a bard, her personal experience with the warden and the inquisitor/inquisition, and her long and storied religious past would all help guide her. but the chaos her reign would unleash is undeniable and fundamental, and in such chaos, the most oppressed can be put at the greatest risk
both solas and leliana view a bright future being worth a risky present; both mythal and vivienne view a slow and steady progression towards an improving situation being worth sustaining the harmful structures
these things are not a simple yes/no, good/bad dynamic. no one is wrong, and no one is entirely right. but the fundamental difference between solas and mythal and the fundamental difference between leliana and vivienne appears, to me, to be much the same: revolution, or harm reduction