content warning for relentless solasposting (and i'm sure someone else has yapped abt this) but the one thing that's always stuck out to me about inquisition is the scene where solas takes an elven inquisitor for a little chat before the skyhold reveal. because oh my god fuck this man and the way he is so quick to weaponise his kinship with lavellan when he sees that corypheus has The Orb™.
the way he takes lavellan (who is definitely exhausted at best and freshly traumatised at worst) aside and immediately starts dropping the "our people", "lethallan/len/lin", "it is ours". also that first line - "the humans have not raised one of our people so high for ages beyond counting" and the fact that it's (imo) a thinly veiled reference to shartan. solas might as well be saying "you may be the herald of andraste to the humans but you must be the saviour and liberator of the elves".
"we must prepare for their reaction, when they learn the orb is of our people.". solas creates this us vs. them dynamic, acts as if this was already something that he shared with lavellan, makes it out like they've always been on the same side against every non-elf when in fact, solas doesn't believe that the elves of thedas are even people at this point. because he knows that the quickest way to the orb (and therefore covering his tracks) is through the inquisitor.
"our gods", "our pantheon". a second religious reference, because he's hedging his bets - appealing to the andrastian and the elven, just in case. "this artefact is sacred, is divine, touched by the gods. we must save it for our people.". i kinda want to get real conspiratorial here and ask why he didn't just do his usual convenient half-truth "i dreamed it" and use the dalish fear of fen'harel to his advantage here. "i recognise the orb from my time in the fade, it is the dread wolf's, we cannot let that malice fall into the hands of the humans" type beat. most likely because he doesn't know which gods clan lavellan venerates, again, he's hedging his bets. never too specific, relying totally on what lavellan infers from what solas says. he plays up the cultural aspect of the orb, its value as a symbol of the elven people, as a living testament to their gods, just to cover up his mistakes. he manipulates lavellan into wanting to save the orb, conserve it for the elven people, so solas can swoop in at the final moment. so he can take it away to "stabilise the ancient magics" or whatever and sculk away in the night as he is want to do. because he didn't do proper research on corypheus. you'd think blighty mcblightmaker would be able to figure out wtf cory's deal was. and yet.
and this is not even days after he says this to an elven inquisitor!!!!(depending on dialogue choices)
"it should mean more", as in currently it means nothing.
"perhaps we should plant a tree". whichever way you read this, it's insulting to dalish and/or city elves. either mocking the vallasdahlen or the vhenadahl. it's just plain cruel. this isn't someone that thinks of lavellan as kin, this isn't someone that would use the phrase "our people" as indiscriminately as he does after haven's destruction.
idk i'm just mesmerised by the way he so artfully chooses the moment to exploit his elf-ness to try and get what he wants. i find myself so distracted by his pathetic wet cat antics that i forget that solas is actually an evil manipulative bastard (affectionate) from the moment he's introduced.
