I actually had a really difficult time deciding what kind of character to play when I started up Dragon Age: Inquisition. I knew I didn’t want to be a Human, since I’d played a human in both the previous games, and I knew I wanted to be a mage which meant I wasn’t going to play a Dwarf, but I couldn’t decide between playing a Qunari or an Elf. I’d been having a lot of fun learning more and more about the Qunari in my replays of the first two Dragon Age games and, since I’ve apparently never spent much time or energy trying to learn about them in previous play-throughs, thought it might be fun to play through this (currently) final game with a Qunari lens over the whole experience. I was interested to see how the general residents of Thedas responded to my character, to be a giant woman, and to see how those who knew about the Qun responded to my character, a mage who had grown up outside the Qun and absolutely not let herself be collared and leashed in the way that most other Qunari mages were. On the other hand, knowing what I know now about how Inquisition can end and how Veilguard starts, I thought it might be fun to play an Elf and finally go through the romance sequence for Solas. I’d started a playthrough as an Elf, once, and thought it was pretty interesting to see how everyone reacted to an Elven Inquisitor, but I’d never actually romanced Solas before. I tried to flirt with him a bunch once, but I was playing a Human woman and he was not interested. Plus, Elven women are pretty fun! They’ve got the most flirt options and, personally, I’m interested in flirting with as many companions as possible! That said, since I’d be playing an Elven woman and absolutely won’t be playing through Dragon Age: Inquisition again any time soon, I knew that this was my one shot to actually romance Solas and see what its all about before Veilguard made it clear to me.

It actually took me a couple days to decide. I even made both characters and sent pictures of them to my book club for help deciding. None of my book club friends were ANY help whatsoever, though. I just couldn’t decide since, with all things calculated out, they were pretty much even in terms of my personal interest/disinterest. What wound up making the decision for me was the names I gave my prospective player characters. Echo, the name I gave my Elf, was just too good of a name to let languish for what might be another ten years in the “other characters” folder. So I finished the prologue, met my future beau, and remembered all over again why I can’t stand that odious little egg-headed baby-man. He has as much texture and character as a sheet of rubber. He’s a bland little man made remarkable only by his complete lack of hair and his utter arrogance. If you are an Elf, you’re a Dalish Elf by default and he immediately heaps so much scorn upon you for that I had to talk myself through actually trying to romance him. I figured that there HAD to be something there since so many people all over the world like the guy and so many people of them seem to enjoy the prospect of romancing him (some of them are even in my book club), so he must have some kind of redeeming qualities other than being kind of fun to hate (I’m having a great time here). Our entire relationship simply can’t be a continuation of our initial interactions: him judging me for being a Dalish Elf who doesn’t know things he himself will freely admit that no one but him could have possibly known. I actually reloaded some of those early conversations, just to see what all he’d have to say, and it was all so much hateful garbage. Dude has a VERY specific view of how the world should be and has absolutely no room for anyone’s vision but his own. I’m already fairly positive that, whatever relationship I wind up having with him, it will wind up being incredibly toxic…

I mean, I know how this all ends. Not the specifics, mind you. The general stuff. Solas is the “wolf” of Elven legend. He actually made all the bad stuff in DA:I happen because he left Corypheus get the whatever thingy that made the big explosion that, figuring Corypheus would power it up and die in the process, but then Corypheus survived and your character, the Inquisitor, wound up with the power that both figures wanted. He admits to this at some point, I think, or someone else who knows it spells it out for everyone. Something something the Veil, something something he’s a bad, bad boy who deserves to be punished for what he’s done, something something this poor baby can’t let go of the past, something something the people need him… Elves, in this case, (most peoples just refer to themselves as “the people” in their own languages and are only named something else by external peoples) apparently need him to be restored to their former grandeur or something, a thing he plans to do as atonement for what he did originally. I’m not sure what that is, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the Veil, the supposed Golden City, the godhood of various beings, probably Flemeth and/or Morrigan given their whole “old god baby” thing, and why the Elves fell apart the way they did. What he’s been doing all these years, though, I have no idea. Maybe he was actually asleep. Maybe he isn’t entirely lying about dreaming in the Fade in order to relive parts of the past that would otherwise be denied to him. Maybe he even means well and isn’t actually caught up in a “this is the only way” pity-party. I, personally, do not have much patience for people who insist that their path is the only way forward, so you can probably understand why I dislike Solas as much as I do given that his entire character is one long string of “it’s my way or the highway” in the base game of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Egg Man there really needs to take a beat, pause, talk things out with people who might know some stuff, and actually work through whether he’s doing this because he’s wracked by guilt and marginally suicidal or if he’s actually certain that there is no better way forward. Bro needs to catch his breath and take a minute to get some distance before he acts.

You might be able to tell that I’m not looking forward to spending a lot of time with Solas as I force myself to go through the rise and (likely) eventual fall of a romance with this Odious Elf. If it seems a little vehement to you when I’ve only spent ten hours on the game so far, but at least an hour of that time, if not two, was spent talking to Solas because, apparently, if you’re a Elven woman, he is one chatty bald-headed baby man. He had so much to say to me and all I had to do to get him to like me was act like he was the smartest, most interesting man alive and uncritically agree with every idea he put forward. Which, you know, probably is a decent simulation for how most women feel when they have to deal with most white men… The only fun bit of dialogue I’ve had or seen with him is an exchange between him and Varric, where Varric remarks on what a nice do-gooder that Solas must be. Solas asks him why he thinks that, expressing incredulity the entire time, and Varric responds by asking what other reason an Elven apostate might have for hanging out in the middle of the strongest chantry-affiliated religious faction left in the world. Solas, grimly foreshadowing everything we might one day learn about him, replies that, when Varric puts it like that, what other reason could he have for doing this stuff? I’m specifically paying attention for more stuff like that as I go along, as the game foreshadows what is coming down the road, just to see how much of it there is before the “official” reveal. In the meantime, while I’d doing that much more interesting work, I will continue romancing this odious Elven egg-headed man and doing my best not to start up a relationship with a character I find much more interesting. Like literally any of them.