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[Please note: this post is a write-up of an ongoing conversation with @polymorphic with whom I am reading TN and discussing the games, so if you see me using the “royal we,” it is because what follows is a condensed version of those dialogues][Spoilers for Tevinter Nights below the page break. Beware, LONG POST]
It is hard not to read this story as an homage to Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon.
Much like that film, the structure is built around a broader enframement (in this case, Charter meeting some contacts in a teahouse in Kirkwall in order to gather intelligence on Fen’s plans), and the rest proceeds like a jigsaw puzzle of nested unreliable narrators. Each participant tells one version of the tale, or rather one element of the puzzle, and each weaves lies and truths together such that the reader is left doubting their footing. The task of unmasking the previous character’s lies is left to the other characters — and by the end, they point out the inconsistencies in the narratives of their counterparts. (Incidentally, the changes in character voice between snippets are amazing—note the Bard's prosody compared to the Carta dwarf.)
Much like in Rashomon, the final conversation is a “reveal” of sorts from the proverbial “ghost in the machine:” by this point, we know that the masked Orlesian bard with the suspiciously awkward blond wig is really Solas in disguise, haunting the gathering like a man who eavesdrops on his own funeral.
Of course, this is very much a story about Solas: and as such, it seems to involve a great deal of double-voicing by Patrick Weekes. The signature structure of the modern novel (and, really, modern prose more generally) is the distinction between authorial, narrative, and character voice, and here I think we see Weekes playing with that quite a bit.
There’s a great deal of virtual ink spilled in the DA fandom about what Solas is and what Solas wants/plans, and this post offers one more take, though we do not claim to have discovered anything particularly new. But in the interest of diversifying the conversation away from the impetus to condemn or absolve, and towards “let us analyze this here discursive construct,” we’ll focus on things like story structure and language and various hints scattered around in the writing of both the short story and the games.
So, onto the story itself. We can’t not read Weekes as, to some extent, ventriloquizing a lot through their characters at the audience. “We know what he wants,” Charter opines, “He wishes to end—”
And then she is cut off by the Carta Assassin, who has no time for this sort of shit. “Not his goal.”
But then, that thread is never picked up again: from the Assassin’s tale we learn that Solas is after the idol (but we knew that from the trailer), but we think it’s safe to assume the idol is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Which makes us read the above statement “not his goal” as an instance of Weekes’ ventriloquism, i.e. a moment where the authorial voice is speaking to the reader directly. Fine, fine, if that’s not his goal, then what is? Let us continue.
We get some answers from the Mortalitasi’s perspective (equally unreliable): the idol is the hilt of a weapon, a red lyrium sacrificial dagger. The red lyrium is Blighted, our Carta friend reminds us (at least twice) and as we know, Blight is bad for business (a nice reminder to the audience about what’s at stake here — however you twist it, the Blight benefits no one).
The Mortalitasi offers some insight on what the Tevinter mage intends to do with it: to control the Fade, and turn it against the invading Qunari forces. It is interesting that here we are told what the idol is, representationally: “it seems to show two lovers, or a god mourning a sacrifice, depending on how it caught your fancy.” Again, this part feels like another bit of ventriloquism — the idol is ambiguous, and BioWare writers know it is ambiguous. Nodding right back at you, Patrick Weekes.
In any case, all does not go according to plan, since Fen’Harel shows up in his lupine form (complete with the six eyes of a pride demon, and general high dragon supersizing) and yells at the mages in all caps — as one does, I suppose. It is interesting that in that moment, and unlike in DAI, he warns about binding spirits again — don’t do it, or else (your life is mine — and one should probably ask what that might mean, beyond the most facile connotation). In any case, he doesn’t kill the mage. A change from how we’ve previously encountered him. Later, he releases the wisp the Mortalitasi bound to stir her drink: “you are free.”
This seems like a small, but important narrative gesture: in the entire story, there is not a single mention of Solas fighting on behalf of the elves, but repeated mentions, at multiple scales (from the spirits of Valor who fight at his side/bidding, to the small wisp put to the task to stir the Nevarran mage’s tea) of liberating spirits. The surface level of the narrative (and, really, the fandom’s attention) has been heavily focused on Elven interests (ancient or modern), but to us, looking purely at what Weekes spends their words emphasizing, there is no evidence that this is quite Solas’s priority here. And it should be noted that Weekes is extremely proficient at deliberate ambiguity (just look at the Solas romance and whether or not it was consummated, and the endless, circular arguments on the subject we see in fandom).
So while the established wisdom is that Solas wishes to restore the Empire of the People, to assume that People=Elves Only strikes us as deeply limited — or perhaps a hyperfocus on a red herring. A lot of Solas’s inconsistencies seem to fuel endless debates in fandom, but Solas himself is unambiguous: spirits are persons too. And in modern Thedas, spirits too are bound into servitude by modern mages, especially in Tevineter, and the rest are quarantined behind the Veil. So with all that in mind, we’ve been playing with ideas about what Solas’s origins might be, to help us figure out what his goal actually is (thank you, nameless Carta Assassin for dropping the ball on that one — we’re here to pick it up and run with it).
There are any number of possible readings of course, and in the interest of not adding to habits of Fandom Circular Discourse or invalidating anyone's take on things, we will limit our task to taxonomizing and speculating, without devolving into moralizing cris de coeurs. Again, this is just our reading, and our limited (and of course situated) opinion.
One possible approach is the “Solas spirit origin” bandwagon — and it is interesting to think about the implications, especially for interpreting who his “people” are. “People” in his dialogues very much operates as a linguistic, context-dependent “shifter”. However one cuts it, he does spend a LOT of time on supplying fascinating ethnographic tidbits about spirits.
Which does beg the question:
(1) is Solas a scholar of the Fade who has overidentified a bit [if so, we should note that there are perils to such over-identifications: in particular in relation to broader critiques of representation—who gets to speak for whom, and on what grounds. Bioware is very careful in casting its antagonists as the sort of person who, one day, decides to shoulder the burden of speaking for "All of Thedas" or, more broadly, the interests of the collective— see Loghain, Corypheus, Anders etc. It also opens some interesting questions about the role of the player character/titular hero and their own legitimacy.]
(2) Is he (Solas, that is) indeed an ancient elf of some sort who has gotten himself entangled as an affine (possibly by symbiosis, possibly parasitically) with a spirit
(3) Is he himself a spirit to begin with? The strongest direct piece of evidence for “spirit first” is probably some of Cole’s banter:
“He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face.”
“Solas, bright and sad, observes and accepts. Spirit self, seeing the soul, Solas, but somehow sorrows.”
"Voice ringing with fullness from both worlds, guiding me to the shining places. He calls himself Pride."
From the bald elf himself, in dialogue with Cole
Solas: You may well become fully human, after all. I never thought to see it.
Cole: When did you see it before?
Solas: I did not say that I had.
Cole: No, you didn't. It's harder to hear, sometimes. Sorry.
On the other hand, Solas himself gives a different account. Of course, he is guilty of some impressive linguistic acrobatics, so let us all agree that a grain of salt is needed, even though he doesn’t lie outright, he just allows a whole lot of entailment on the part of the audience, and really this, we think, is part of Weekes’ brilliance as a writer.
Solas: I apologize for disturbing you, Cole. I am not a spirit, and sometimes it is hard to remember such simple truths.
Solas: A mistake. One of many made by a much younger elf who was certain he knew everything.
Cole: In his own way, he knew wisdom, as no man or spirit had before.
(Emerald Graves - Elgarnan's Bastion) My people built a life here... it must have been something to see.
“I grew up in a village to the north…” [describes learning how to get along with spirits as a young mage].
“I was Solas First. Fen’Harel came later...An insult I took as a badge of pride. The Dread Wolf inspired hope in my friends and fear in my enemies. Not unlike ‘Inquisitor’, I suppose.”
Incidentally (well, likely not incidentally at all), Weekes’ story expands on all of this material, and Solas intervenes, correcting Charter’s assessment:
“He is not a god, as he himself says. He is merely a very old, very powerful elven mage.”
Our fake Bard interjects here: “Or possiblement a very young mage,” the Bard suggested. “He could be a simple elf who stumbled upon old magic.”
The Mortalitasi has opinions on this too: “Or he could be a demon impersonating an elf.”
This is the first moment where we see this back-and-forth in-text speculation of what Solas is, but it isn’t the only one.
Following the Mortalitasi’s tale, our Carta friend is annoyed — of course he knew the elf was dangerous, is he a demon now too? Charter intervenes: “or has an alliance with a demon.” She brings up Corypheus’s alliance with Fear by way of evidence, and Cory’s strategy to “trap the Grey Wardens.” Solas here grouses/interjects: “the Wardens trapped themselves,” he says — but he does not course-correct over the suggestion of an alliance.
Is there an option (d) in this multiple choice, or should we check off all of the above?
It is said that wisdom spirits turn to pride demons when they're corrupted, just as Justice kept warping into Vengeance while merged with Anders. One possibility is that Solas was an evanuris first (but a younger one), and then did the merging with a vast spirit of wisdom to gain the power he needed to overthrow all the Creators and Forbidden Ones, on top of raising the Veil. When they merged, the wisdom spirit may have twisted into something between a pride demon and itself, and when combined with Solas, Fen’Harel was born. From one angle, this is a form of death of two beings as individuals, each being sacrificed for a unified purpose: to protect spirits and the People from neverending enslavement and inter-godly warfare. Such a reading would also resolve the conflicting messages surrounding his interest in both elves and spirits, and the way he alternates speaking as an outsider concerning each group. He would straddle the grey area that he, himself, described in nature. It also answers a possible dualistic interpretation of “I was Solas first.” All of his art may have the same dual meaning; he is nearly always depicted separately as an elf, with a pride-eyed wolf hovering over him. They could be completely disparate allies, sure...but it is difficult to believe that Weekes would be so straightforward after writing this character so ambiguously.
It is interesting to put this model in parallel with the Old God Baby problem. A spirit shoved into (or grafted upon) an original host, in the same way that an Old God Baby transmission mechanism grafts a soul onto an unborn child (see Kieran) — it seems to us that this process is not so distinct from a spirit allying itself with a mortal (or possession states more generally), though in the OGB case, accommodations are made for possible species incompatibility (and subsequent potential for mutual contamination) via fetal flexibility.
Alternatively, with an eye to some of Cole’s banter cited above, perhaps what he is is an amalgamation of several different spirits: such as a spirit of wisdom made flesh, but deliberately modified towards (or blended with) a more prideful expression of itself, perhaps to make him more effective as Mythal’s general. Or, alternatively, and this is perhaps the strangest, most unlikely, and most Eldritch horror possibility that checks off all the multiple choices: he is a chain of iterative imitations, a sequence of spirits imitating a previous copy, or an original being, gaining the will to manifest over and over and over again, either via their own volition or via repeated possession, but gradually morphing as errors are introduced with every subsequent iteration. (We jest, we jest 🤪)
But on to the Bard’s tale. Here lots of interesting things are happening, of course, but what struck us the most was our fake Bard describing Fen’Harel’s (haha!) behavior with the idol. Here, he confirms that the depiction of the two figures is one comforting the other. He strokes the idol, seemingly tenderly: and why not? If the idol is a depiction of Mythal with a “sacrifice” — symbolic or otherwise — one must wonder, in light of the parallelism in DAI where Solas holds Mythal as he absorbs her power, whether it is in fact him who is depicted. If so, it makes us wonder if that is indeed the story of his genesis.
In light of this, it has also come to our attention that the title of Solas’s personal quest is reprised later from DAI to Trespasser: “All new, faded for her” is a phrase introduced in Solas’ quest to rescue his wisdom friend, who had been enslaved and corrupted to a pride demon. Then it is repeated again in Cole’s dialogue in the Shattered Library. Assuming “all new, faded” could mean ‘merged with a spirit,’ and that “for her” refers to Mythal, it does seem to point to the symbiosis theory.
On to the unmasking moment:
By the end of the story, all our friends are petrified, except for Charter, and she and Solas have a (more or less) honest conversation. She’s there because he said that he will destroy the world, but Solas changes the wording to “ending” it. And then, here’s an interesting tidbit: “What I am doing will save this world, and those like you — the elves that still remain — may even find it better when it is done.” As usual with Weekes’s writing, it is useful to pay attention to the shifting meanings: assuming that this world he is talking about is a complex ecology, one where the Fade (and its denizens) are central to his efforts, then saving the elves (those who remain, “those like you,” not like him) appears rather epiphenomenal to his plans. Charter here is especially poignant: what about the others? And of course, that question remains unresolved, and productively so, because here Weekes seems to remind us, despite writing a troubled, relatable villain, that Solas’s plans (as they currently stand) remain rather ruthless about collateral. There is no simple, morally upright solution to the problem if spirits are brought into the equation: an ecology that takes the Fade into consideration is one where the food chain and hierarchies of predation do not favor fleshlings as the apex predator. Dragon Age is no Zootopia — there is no easy way to solve this (if “solving” it is indeed the right approach to the task).
One thing that got a lot of attention already is his admission to Charter: “I am not a god. I am prideful, and hotheaded, and foolish, and I am doing what I must.” When he speaks to the Inquisitor, his voice falters. Now, here we have a hard time not to hear Weekes’ authorial voice ringing through the utterance. This is not the first time Solas describes himself this way, and Weekes chose to emphasize it again (in a short story with a limited word count, every word counts.) Charter does a reprise of it at the end: here Weekes turns our attention to what matters, a highlight for the audience, we think. “Prideful, hotheaded, foolish. Doing what he must. Sympathetic to elves. Said that he was sorry.”
And Charter concludes, “The Dread Wolf wasn’t going to stop himself.”
But of course, we knew that: that will be the player character’s job.