The Mirroring of Solas and The Inquisitor
It’s incredible how extensive the mirror theme between Solas and the Inquisitor is from DAI to VG.
Beginnings: Solas left the Fade and was immediately thrown into war; the Inquisitor begins the same way, stepping out of the Fade straight into war. Both are blamed for world altering disasters they never intended - Solas for the Veil, the Inquisitor for the Breach. And both emerge with power that isn’t actually theirs: Solas, crafted through the blood of Titans; the Inquisitor, with the Anchor burned into their hand. Both are bound to the Fade and the Veil.
Rebellion and Titles: Like Solas leading a rebellion, so too does the Inquisitor - because at its core, the Inquisition is a rebellion. Solas rose against the Evanuris and their systems. The Inquisitor rises against every established system in Ferelden, Orlais, even Minrathous. And with rebellion come titles. Solas becomes Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf, God of Lies, buried under propaganda while the Inquisitor deals with their own titles - Herald, First-Thaw, heretic. Harding’s line in JoH applies to both: “Every time you’re ‘more than just a person’ to someone, you’re also less than a person to them.” and Solas himself drives the parallel home: “You also know the burden of a title that all but replaces your name.”
Both wear masks to move their causes forward. Solas accepts the Dread Wolf because it’s a tool. The Inquisitor can lean into being the Herald, even believe it, regardless, it secures alliances. Both are divisive figures and divisiveness always comes with compromise.
Compromise and Division: Each is judged through the lens of perception: hero to some, betrayer to others. Solas used others as needed, hardening into ruthlessness and facing questions from allies. The Inquisitor also begins as a unifier but inevitably becomes divisive. Choosing between mages or templars empowers one side while condemning the other, and the “victory” at Halamshiral is legitimizing political corruption, no matter the faction. Both Solas and the Inquisitor are forced into the same arena - political machinations and choices that never satisfy everyone. “Sometimes terrible choices are all that remain.”
Breaking Free and Bearing Consequences: The mirror continues into Trespasser. The Inquisitor can roll the Inquisition under the Chantry and become its “lapdog,” or disband it - breaking free from a compromised structure, just as Solas once refused to join the Evanuris, exposing their corruption. Both reject broken systems. Both build networks of agents to pursue their cause. Solas’ own words in DAI apply to them equally: “…remember your goals, and do nothing that does not further them.” And what is the story of VG meant to be if not those goals carried forward?
Even the war table reflects this parallel. Every decision the Inquisitor makes spawns new operations, forcing them to face the ripple effects of their choices. In the same way, every action Solas took against the Evanuris carried fallout of its own - highlighted in the codices scattered through VG.
VG Parallels. Veilguard expands the reflection even into the story's structure. Solas is suddenly without his network and alone in VG. The Inquisitor too is absent of their agents, none of their companions about and barely mentioned aside from Dorian. Solas spends most of the game sidelined in the regret prison, while the Inquisitor is sidelined in the South - both stepping in when needing to help Rook. When Solas fights in Minrathous with the Shadow Dragons, the Inquisitor also shows up, helping Rook. Both claim responsibility as their own and are bound to duty. Solas to the past, the Inquisitor to the present. When Rook says to the Inquisitor, “Sounds like I’m cleaning up your mess,” the Inquisitor accepts it - just as Solas accepts responsibility for the Veil. And both even have their stories in VG delivered in similar ways - Solas through his 6 regrets and the Inquisitor through their 6 missives.
Both are the outlier voices of a group. Any Inquisitor stands alone among powerful voices in that room before the final battle, highlighting an alternative: maybe Solas can still be reasoned with. That was Solas once too, the lone dissenter in a council of 'gods', his wisdom often ignored. For a romanced Lavellan, the mirror reflects deeper in that scene. Morrigan teases, “Speaking from the heart, Inquisitor?” In Dragon Age, Lavellan is named Solas’ heart, so in that room, whose words are really being spoken? Hers, or his? When Solas once begged Mythal to turn from the Evanuris, he failed. Now his heart itself stands in his place, making the same plea to others: to see another way.
Endings: Solas freed elves from enslavement, “Ar lasa mala revas”. In the Atonement ending, the Inquisitor mirrors that back to him - you too are now free. For a romanced Lavellan, the parallel deepens. Both walk the din’anshiral and in her words to Solas - “You think you’ve gone too far to come back, but you’re wrong” - she reflects his own plea to Mythal long ago that maybe she can join him instead. Both moments are each of them reaching out to another, highlighting there is another way.
Left Hands: Both use their left hand to hold the Veil together. The Inquisitor loses theirs when the Anchor turns destructive; Solas cuts his when he binds himself to the Veil. That feels pretty deliberate - marking his own left hand where the Inquisitor once bore his Anchor? One loses the left hand to survive; the other cuts the left hand to atone. Both surrender bodily autonomy to the same burden - the veil.
Regrets and Missives: Even Solas’ six regrets and the Inquisitor’s journey mirror each other. Each regret is a map of what the Inquisitor experiences in DAI through to Trespasser . Maybe that’s why the wolf statuette tied to the Evanuris’ “ascension” is the one that the Inquisitor gets (if you take that initial statuette straight to the Lighthouse after getting it from the Inquisitor, it’s the regret that plays first). For Solas, the betrayal was Mythal joining the Evanuris as gods. For the Inquisitor, the ‘betrayal’ is Solas revealed as the Dread Wolf - his own kind of ascension to godhood unfolding before their eyes. (But that’s another post, this is already too long.)
I don’t know if BW ever meant for the mirroring to be this thick, but playing through the Inquisitor’s story in DAI and Trespasser was, in many ways, playing through Solas’ story too. Two halves of the same story, walking the same road - and if a romanced Lavellan - walking that road even beyond Thedas.
I'd love it hear if anyone has any other examples I might have missed.
