Summary
- Solas is a complex character with deep lore and a love story that is tragic but captivating.
- Playing as a Lavellan in a romance with Solas offers unique insights into elven lore and the game's storyline.
- The Solas romance in Trespasser DLC adds emotional depth and reveals more about his motives and history.
Dragon Age: Inquisition has the most dramatic twists packed into one game of the franchise, and the revelations players learn right up until the epilogue of the story are worth experiencing at least once without knowing what’s coming. For those who aren’t averse to spoilers, however, there is a case to be made for taking a shine to the lonely rift mage of Inquisition’s lineup, Solas. Solavellan fans need no persuading, but those looking in from the outside may seek a few good reasons to take the plunge instead of the punch.
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By now, almost everyone is acquainted with Solas’ true identity, but not many who haven’t tried his romance themselves understand the appeal of this mysterious apostate elf. After all, why would anyone intentionally place their bare heart into the maw of a wolf of ill repute? Lavellan players who were swept off their feet would say it’s for the same reasons that Shakespeare’s plays are still produced on stage centuries later. Tragic love is bittersweet, and the more star-crossed, the better. But Solas’ romance has so much more than that. With Solas, Lavellan isn’t just catching any eye–this is the romance snatched away by Fen’Harel himself.
This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Inquisition and Trespasser DLC.
1 Solas Knows Things
Central To The Plot Is An Understatement
Players who like it if their love interest tags along everywhere will thank themselves for making Solas a permanent party member. Quite aside from the effect he has been known to have on players after simply saying hello or “Vhenan,” Solas is the character who knows a suspicious amount about everything related to the Fade, and so much more.
The special bond Lavellan can create with Solas offers more than friendship does in the way of revealing lore, and his love for the Inquisitor is demonstrable in the way he tries to open the eyes of his beloved. This is especially intriguing to experience from the perspective of a Dalish who strongly believes in the old gods and ways of the Elvhenan, although it is not a journey for the faint of heart.
2 “Vhenan”, My Heart
The Choice Romance For Lovers Of Angst
Solas’ romance is one of the most gated, and tricky enough that making him a romance option at all wasn’t a certainty. By making him only available to a straight Lavellan – and even then only if players intuit how he awards his enigmatic approval – fans are given the impression that only something as great as their romance could sway him from his destructive path.
Given his story, and that he never intended to fall for anyone, it makes sense that only an exceptional elf could connect deeply enough with Solas and distract him from his purpose. This romance is an exquisite expression of classical romantic tragedy, made only more potent by the palpable loss and loneliness of Solas’ existence slowly revealed as he falls for Lavellan.
3 The Elf Of Dreams
The Heartbreakingly Romantic Gentle-Elf
The straightforward draw of Solas is that he is a gentleman and the only thing that can seduce him is a romantic love for the ages, but it’s also about his tantalizing contradictions. His cutscenes are all about longing for more and wondering what it would cost Thedas to make it happen. He adores a Lavellan who displays knowledge and a thirst for learning, but he doesn’t like questions about himself for reasons obvious to anyone who finishes Inquisition.
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That doesn’t mean netting some disapproval isn’t worth it with some selective inquisitiveness. So long as players support him in the things that matter to him the most, largely revolving around spirits and elves, challenging Solas can be an insightful experience for Dalish players, especially through the lens of romancing him.
4 Up Close & Personal With The Evanuris
Not Just Any Romance For The Inquisitor
For those who choose Solas without knowing anything about him, Inquisition feels like being dragged to the depths of the Well of Sorrows. If Lavellan is played as Dalish as they come, it’s only a slight consolation that her utter heartbreak may save the world – and that she happened to be romancing the next best thing to an elven god without knowing it.
Fen’Harel, however, is not a savory name among the Dalish. He is remembered as the Dreadwolf, the god who defied all the other gods and brought about the downfall of the Elvhenan Empire. Not knowing whether the legends are true, and becoming attached to Solas the apostate elf of no apparent importance, gives a special twist to Inquisition’s grand finale and Trespasser becomes an intense emotional journey, driving home just how confounding being an elf in Thedas has always been.
5 A Unique Perspective On The New Antagonists
Understanding The Motives Of The Dreadwolf
Fen’Harel has a much more complicated story than what legends lead the modern elves of Thedas to believe. The Dalish are no exception; if anything, their beliefs about the past and their gods stand the furthest from what the Elvhenan Empire truly experienced under the rule of the Evanuris. Solas explains little, but with Lavellan he can’t help but be his true self sometimes, and those moments yield some fascinating clues.
Solas has a divisive effect in the fandom, and many approach the character from the perspective of his world-shaking mistakes with good reason. Those who take the time to steal his heart, however, will discover the person beneath the titles, and gain insight into who he is in ways that explain so many of his actions, even if the Inquisitor doesn’t agree with his conclusions or solutions.
6 Trespasser Is Even More Excellent
No One Runs Through It Like A Solavellan Fan
Seeing as Solas features heavily in Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC, it should come as no surprise that there are benefits to playing it as a Solasmancer. Meeting Solas again after the dramatic epilogue of the main game has plenty of emotional charge for all players, ranging from wishing he were Anders to a heartwarming – if desperate – moment of friendship.
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For those who choose to become Vhenan to Solas, nothing quite beats the sense of urgency players feel as they’re sped along a journey into their beloved’s past. As eye-opening as Trespasser is for fans of elven lore, channeling the feelings of a heartbroken Lavellan searching for her lost love is unparalleled in its romanticism.
7 The Truth Of The Vallaslin
The Fate & History Of The Elves Are Personal For Lavellan
Learning about the Evanuris is difficult to digest for anyone who has been following the fate of the elves with great interest since Origins. Roleplaying a Lavellan who deeply cares about her people in Inquisition is a gut-wrenching experience. The Inquisitor’s despair at watching everything she believes in crumbling is the kind of transporting journey that ends with needing a blanketfort to recover.
The lies of the past have a stronger sway than the intentions of the elf who tried to stop it, but at the very least, Solas gives Lavellan a gift that not even her male counterpart is offered: freedom from a symbol of ancient tyranny. Those enchanted by this ancient elf won’t be at peace at the end of Trespasser, but they will leave with hope for a tentative future for this romance in The Veilguard. Though Solas is gone, it’s clear from the epilogue and the DLC that his love is not.
8 Solavellan Will Influence Veilguard
This Romance Could Save Or End The World
The sweet sorrow of love being almost but not quite enough has been the muse of many poets around the world for thousands of years. This story is not one of unrequited love but it is nonetheless impossible. This romance plays into the allure of being the one who saves her despairing lover from himself before he truly becomes the villain, and there is no guarantee for a happy ending.
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At the end of Inquisition, Solasmancers are left with the distinct impression that Lavellan is the only one who has the chance to make the Dreadwolf waiver in his resolve, but it’s also clear that the Inquisitor’s chapter as the main character has ended. Solasmancers aren’t likely to ever get Cullenite-grade fluffy fulfillment, but they will have the keenest appetite to find out how the story continues in Veilguard and the most questions for Solas to answer.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
- Released
- November 18, 2014
