astolat

I just finished my first Inquisition playthrough (as a female elven mage, romancing Solas). I love how this plays out with a Solas/Lavellan romance going (although I'm even more super mad about the party banter bug, however, because it's clear that I would have gotten so much more depth about Solas if I'd been hearing all his commentary. :'( I need to go back and take Solas exploring in the elven ruins some more; I couldn't be bothered gathering enough shards to get in very deep the first time around :P and see if I can get any more banter, too.

FWIW, the fix to always use the War Room fast travel to leave Skyhold/change party did work for me -- once I started doing that I got loads more banter. Also, if you are playing the game for the first time, I highly recommend do NOT spend too much time before you do the first two "major" quests ie mages or templars and orlais -- I ended up getting overleveled and doing too much, and I think it plays better if you spend roughly equal amounts of side-questing in between all four of the "big" pieces.

OK and now -- SOLAS. ALL THE SPOILERS below the cut for the overall ending and for Solas/Lavellan romance (SERIOUSLY DON'T CLICK UNLESS YOU ALREADY KNOW THE END)

(also please don't spoil me for the templar plotline or any of the other companion romances!)

(but please come talk to me about Solas omg)


What I desperately want now is an expansion where Solas/Fen'Harel resurfaces and attempts to free the rest of the elven "gods", and the Inquisitor has to deal with him. I'm hoping that we actually will get this -- the ending really feels like a cliffhanger for Solas's return as not quite an enemy but an antagonist, and I so much want to play it with the romance backstory.

Post-Corypheus I think my Lavellan turns her attention to helping the elves, and uses the Inquisition as a base to gather more and more of her people -- not just the Dalish but city elves, elven mages from the Circles, former slaves from Tevinter -- and while trying to piece together more of lost elven history, also turns away from trying to restore the past and towards building something entirely new. I feel like there's a really interesting potential conflict there between her as more forward-looking and Solas trying to look back.

I also want to play with an idea (that I don't have any idea if Bioware intends but that works for me) -- that maybe the elven gods, who Solas pretty much says were just powerful beings, were actually just the most powerful elven Dreamer mages, who discovered a way to cross over into the Fade in a kind of permanent way and exist both in and out of the Fade. And when they did this, "seating" themselves in the Fade (the golden throne is a metaphor! :P) their power increased in some dramatic exponential way -- they became immortal and godlike and partly disconnected from time (and it's not that elves were inherently immortal but these god-kings could keep their follower-slaves immortal with them -- I'm imagining that the vallaslin had some role in this, connecting elves to their "master").

And Corypheus and the original Tevinter magisters were trying to achieve this, without really knowing what exactly they were trying to achieve. Maybe the golden throne was empty because Fen'Harel had trapped the other elves away?

Anyway, my vague idea is that Lavellan is herself getting close to this boundary point -- that she may have to "cross over" it in order to face Solas, or maybe she has to beat him to crossing over (back over, in his case), or else he'll bring back the rest of the elven god-kings and all of Thedas will be thrown into chaos again.

I'm thinking that Solas originally trapped the other elven god-kings to free the elves from enslavement to THEM, but this left the elven kingdom vulnerable to the Tevinter magisters -- who I'm guessing took out him and Mythal in some way -- and now he plans to let them out again to smash Tevinter, free the elven slaves, bring back the glory of Elvhenan. And Flemythal deliberately sacrificed herself and gave him her power at the end (it seemed really clear to me that's what happened and not that Solas became her vessel), because she wants vengeance and this is the only way she can get it.

I also want to write some missing scenes from the temple at Dirthanen and the elven ruins -- one thing I really love is that Inquisition could plausibly have covered a span of years, when you consider the amount of traveling, army-and-influence-building, supply-gathering. I really like the idea that you've had years with Solas and there have been moments here and there all around the events. (Granted the "I've distracted you" wording of the break-up moment doesn't really fit with a relationship of any duration at all, but that's silly anyway since there's clearly been at least SOME significant amount of time between the first and second bits of romance, so I am electing to ignore it!)

I love the Hissing Wastes in particular -- those huge spaces, that night sky, the silence. I need a story of Solas and Lavellan in their tent at night, with the sand whispering against the canvas and the distant grunting of wyverns, talking softly about magic and the Fade and Arlathan, and she sings a Dalish song that is built out of fragments of old ones, and he almost says something, almost tells her, but holds back at the last moment.

And I need more of that scene after Haven, after he's told her about the orb and Skyhold, with the echoes of the whole camp singing fading away in the distance; and maybe something after she's been named Inquisitor and has formed found-family ties to her advisors, the other companions -- in my mind the first time she's really known and trusted non-elves, and begun to shape in her head a vision of a different future than just the Dalish attempt to preserve and rebuild.


aaaaa, so many feelings! And now I get to start my playthrough of human warrior boy with a Dorian romance, and after that I think I'm going to do a bit of a wild, devil-may-care female rogue and split it into three romance paths with Iron Bull, Cullen, and Blackwall. Although the human warrior boy might go for Iron Bull, too. so many choices! \o/

Also hey where is the fandom other than the bioware forums? Is there a kinkmeme anywhere? (And if you want to throw me in particular any Solavellan prompts, the inbox is open although I make no promises!)