What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

some DA:I tinhatting

So is it just me, or is there a suspicious similarity between the surface-dwarven story of Fairel, Paragon of Paragons, and the interwoven story of Fen’Harel, aka Solas? The first inscription about Fairel says “from pride these halls were made,” which pings with the fact that “solas” literally means “pride” - as does the similarity between the names Fairel and Fen’Harel. 

Like. All through Inquisition, it feels like we’re getting little hints that the various creation stories of the different groups in Thedas, but especially the elves, dwarves and the chantry, are really one story being told in different ways, in fragments that have corroded in the absence of a whole. So you get the similarities between the Golden City and Arlathan, which may well be the same place - and then there’s Fairel’s ruins, which are meant to predate the Blight. 

When you go into the first ruin, there’s demons bound into the stone there, with notes from the Venatori wondering how the dwarves did it, and that makes a contrast with the dwarven expression about death meaning “returning to the Stone,” which is also how Fairel’s end is described. And given the whole thing about the Titans, with lyrium as their blood/bones and red lyrium meaning they’re infected with the Blight, that makes me wonder if the “Stone” as the dwarves understand it in the sense of a place to return to isn’t somehow another concept of Arlathan/the Golden City/the place before the Veil, especially as demons are described as “stone-waste” in old dwarven. 

And just. The whole thing about the old gods I find very fascinating, because Mythal/Flemeth survives in a series of human bodies and Solas doesn’t actually *like* the elves, even though he ostensibly is one, and all the old stories about the ancient gods of Tevinter etc, and Morrigan’s son having the soul of an old god and being able to hear the Titans - what if ALL those gods are a different people who just adopted and/or created the various peoples of Thedas after the fact? That would explain how Solas could be both Fen’Harel and Fairel, and why Flemeth has never bothered to try and appear elven.

(Also, sidebar: I totally understand why people get mad about Morrigan elfsplaining elven history to a Dalish Inquisitor, but I also feel like her obsession with elves is tied to the fact that she’s Flemeth’s daughter, and Flemeth is literally an elven goddess in a human body. Even if Morrigan never knew that, her whole identity and being are clearly shaped by her mother’s magic at a fundamental level, so I feel like she’s maybe inherited this nameless, urgent sense of elven kinship without ever knowing why until Mythal reveals herself.)

ANYWAY. Thoughts?

  1. keturagh reblogged this from notsosecretsolasobsession
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  6. fromorzammarwithlove reblogged this from fozmeadows and added:
    There isn’t really anything within this verse that would suggest a connection to Solas, apart from the word pride, which...
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    I like to thing the Golden/Black city is actually Elgar’nan’s temple. And the taint started with him and his anger and...
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