#but maaan that friggin tweet lmao
Let me tell you something about Solas and a tiny little detail in his romance that has been keeping me up at night for almost seven years now.
(God. Where do I even start here? lol)
Ok so, for those who don’t know me, I love playing DA in different languages and it’s kind of a hobby of mine to compare different dubs and translations, not in a competitive way but rather just out of genuine curiosity and interest in localization and voice acting in general.
That being said, there’s one scene in DAI that always stuck out to me in that regard.
And that’s the scene between the Inquisitor and Solas on the balcony.
(Putting the rest under a cut, if you’re interested. )
I’vealready talked about how this dialogue and the scene leading up to it mark the turning point for his character development and how this is, in my opinion, one of the most important scenes in the game. But instead of talking about the meaning of it all, this time I want to take a closer look on what he’s saying. Particularly, one tiny little word.
Only if your approval with Solas is high enough, he will ask to talk in private, go to the balcony and he will talk to you about the anchor and how it has affected you. More specifically, he will ask:
“Has it changed you in any way? Your mind, your morals, your… spirit?”
Notice how he pauses just veeery briefly on that last word here. On its own, I always thought that there is something super curious about Solas of all people using this term in this scene specifically in relation to the Inquisitor’s inner nature and change, when the whole point of this scene is Solas admitting to himself (while also trying to deny it at the same time lol) that the people of the waking world are just as “real” as spirits of the Fade, when - for just this once - he’s not referring to a spirit in the sense of a being from the Fade here….
…….Unless……..!
See, in both the German and the French version of this scene, the word “spirit” is translated with “Seele”and“amé”.
Soul.
I can’t speak for the translation of all the subtitled languages for DAI, though if anyone wants to look up what their language’s translation says in this scene, please feel free to tell me, I’d love to know! :)
The thing is, if it wasn’t for Solas of all people, using this word in the context of this scene in this manner specifically, I wouldn’t even give this a second thought! Because although the word “spirit” can be used for both, in the sense of a being that lives in the Fade, as well as in the sense of a soul in English, depending on context, whereas in German for example, a “spirit” of the Fade is translated with “Geist” (or “ghost” in English), simply because there’s no other way to translate it in the sense of what they are. If anything, using “soul” in the context of this scene would just seem like the most reasonable translation to go with here.
And yet, I find it curious.
Because, you know who else used this exact word to describe his friend once?
“Spirit self. Seeing the soul. Solas. But somehow sorrows.”
Keep talking to Cole long enough and he will, in his own cryptic alliterated way, break all companions down in a way that describes them in their most fundamental core. And this is how he describes Solas, fully knowing who he is.
Not only has this to be one of the most crucial lines about Solas in the game imo, but looking at this line with the balcony scene in mind.. it left me thinking…
Now let me make a super quick radical jump here and talk about twitter for a second. lol Please don’t leave yet. This is getting somewhere. *puts on tinfoil hat*
So… I have been searching f o r e v e r.. and, believe me, at this point, I would pay actual money to the person that’s willing to take the time and go this far down the timeline for me, because I. cannot. find. it. anywhere and it’s killing me, but I SWEAR to god.. There was a tweet by Patrick Weekes from many years ago, probably around 2015ish, right after Trespasser came out.. that was a response to a question a fan had sent them. Basically, the question said
“Were Solas’ feelings for Lavellan ever truly real?”
Now, I know what you’re thinking! To avid Solavellan fans like us, a question like this almost sounds preposterous! How can you even question that, right? But that’s not what we’re talking about, what’s far more important here and what has been keeping me up at night ever since, is the answer Weekes gave them. Paraphrasing from memory, the tweet said
“I think so. There’s actually a fairly obvious reason for this, that we may or may not reveal some day.”
Goddamnit Patrick. This tweet has been living rent free in my head since 2015. It’s haunting me. And it could mean absolutely nothing, but.. A reason why Solas’ feelings for Lavellan had to be real without doubt? Something so obvious, yet we don’t know? What could that possibly be?
And then I thought back to that line on the balcony and Cole’s words.
Because, here’s the thing.
If you’re playing as an Inquisitor who befriends him, that line in the scene on the balcony is the only instance in the entire game where Solas uses the word “spirit” and it’s translated with “soul”.
Becausethe only other moment where he does this again, is in dialogue with a romanced Lavellan on the balcony and in their final break up scene in Crestwood.
“If the Dalish could raise someone with a spirit like yours, have I misjudged them?”
“I won’t mention it again. Just know that, whatever happens, spirits such as yours are rare.”
“Still, know that whatever happens, you are a rare spirit in this world.”
“You have a rare and marvelous spirit. In another world…”
Inall these instances, the German and French version translate spirit with soul.
While people have dismissed these lines as just a cheesy way for him to say “You’re not like the rest of them”, it’s clear that in both these scenes, Solas is talking about the Inquisitor in a sense that indicates that he sees something in them that sets them apart from anyone else.
But what if this “something” goes beyond mortal comprehension?
“Spirit self. Seeing the soul. Solas. But somehow sorrows.”
I’vetalked about it on here in great length already, but if the theory is true and the Evanuris mined the Titan’s blood/lyrium to create bodies for spirits to inhabit and to enslave them by marking and binding them with their vallaslin, and if Solas was one such spirit that was given a body by Mythal, and if the spirits are the people he wants to save by tearing down the Veil, the ones that were trapped in the Fade when the creation of the Veil caused the separation of body and spirit, then maybe THOSE are the souls that no one but him “can see”. As he’s the only one who has a true understanding of what spirits truly are.
Are spirits the souls of those who were trapped in the Fade when Solas created the Veil, just like the Evanuris?
“You have a rare and marvelous spirit. In another world…”
In another world, a world without the Veil, there would’ve been nothing preventing them from being together, no reason for him to leave her.
“I look at you and I see what you truly are…”
Hesees her soul like no one else could in this world and what it would’ve been in his world. Something so rare and so marvelous, how could he have not fallen in love with her? The “obvious reason” Weekes was talking about and that Solas alone is able to see.
Spirit self. Seeing the soul. Solas. But somehow sorrows.
But what is it? What’s the rarest kind of all spirits? That’s what’s yet to be revealed by them I think and I’m not saying it’s totally a spirit of Hope BUT I can’t wait to see if I’m completely wrong about all of this lol OR if it will be revealed when Solas manages to tear down the Veil as prophesiedand“everyone will be just like they were”, because “when he rises, everyone will see.”
