Get to know Solas, they said
January 12, 2015
4:10 am
I’m sorry I’ll probably finish this game and stop drawing nonstop dragon age crap in the next week or so but yeah uh, Solas man, apparently you only get the “punch him in the face” option if you’re an elf. This isn’t even all that much of an exaggeration of what he actually says to the Inquisitor and Bull. I’ve heard he calls dwarves “severed limb that twitches but doesn’t have real life or purpose” or something like that if you went that route so man he’s really going for the racist grandpa gold medal.
So are they on that balconey because the sights are nice or because it would be easier to throw the jackass over the railing and pretend it was an accident, his old age and all that.
I was honestly hoping the comic ended with the Inquisitor throwing Solas off the edge.
And Solas yelling “I take that back!” as he falls.
Solas is… “Innocently Insensitive”, if i may say so ^^;;
He is ANYTHING but innocent, he knows full well what he says.
He has opinions but at least he knows to separate them from what needs be done. :P
That’d just be reinforcing the stereotypes, better to just walk away.
True enough you can’t kill them because then they would be right and you can’t change their mind because they are too bull-headed (no offence to Bull)
I think you mean you can’t change their mind because they’re falling off a castle wall.
That’s why you throw them off, y’know? If you’re gonna do the time despite your innocence, you might as well have the fun of the crime.
You know, he probably walks away. And then later finds out the guy fell down the stairs and gets blamed for it.
Better, throw him over the edge AND walk away!
Would throwing sheep/goats at him be considered reinforcing the stereotype?
I was actually able to befriend Solas. Dunno how I managed it but I did. Didn’t even use the internet. Just kept saving and reloading before talking to him. Oh and there was that one time where i was able to ask him about his journey’s into the fade. Major respect points w/ him w/ that convo line.
For anyone curious, here’s Solas talking about how all Qunari but you suck:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ_HRcvpEDA
I always just thought the problem with Solas is that he does not give a shit about mortal races. Dude spends all his time talking to spirits so he’s got this “I am so much more enlightened than you” thing going on.
When that inquisitor started talking, it was NOT the voice I expected. Do all quinari inquisitors talk like that? That’s just wrong
No, you get two options for voice (for all races). Either a British accent or an American one. So far, I pretty much prefer the british voice.
British voices are both higher pitch, American voices are both lower. I think the Qunari and the Dwarf default to American unless you change it and the Human and elf default to British.
Hm true. I haven’t honestly heard that much of the male voices (I don’t usually play guys) so I can’t really comment on those I only played maybe an hour or two with the female American voice and it just grates on me. :\
And you’re correct about the default settings.
There’s actually two different voices you can pick and there’s a “gruffer” one you can choose but it’s kind of more dwarfy than it is Qunari. Same with the women voices, but those it doesn’t seem as odd coming from a lady Qunari.
As I understand it, there’s four options for voices, two per gender. One more feminine and one more masculine.
There are two main types of voices: British (default for humans and elves) and American (default for Dwarves and Qunari). The British voice is slightly less deep, but that’s about it.
I like the American voice, honestly, it sounds a little like Michael Dorn (even though it’s the Zevran guy from DA:O)
I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one who thought that. To this day, my Herald will finish a long speech and I’m just going, “…Worf?”
I have to say, when I was making a female dwarf I opted for the American voice. The British voice (from the small preview sample) was way, way too high-pitched and home-counties for a Carta… *ahem* ‘smuggler’.
I wonder if I’m less tolerant of British accents in US made game because, being British, I notice how stereotyped and cliché many of them are.
Don’t forget, the arm of Bioware that made Dragon Age is Canadian.
dem Canadians eh? XD I feel the only good thing about racism, is the hilarious accents that are inaccurately portrayed.
That voice actually reminded me of Batman… I guess I know what my Inquisitor will look like when I finally catch up to this game.
Agree that it’s Batman-ish. I end up replaying dialogues just to hear him say stuff. :)) I’m still trying to nail that Bruce Wayne look in the character creation screen, though.
I got the punch option with my Trevelyan. Shame though, Solas really hated him despite my not really trying to displease him.
As soon as I met Dorian I stopped every bothering with Solas. Have yet to regret that, dude’s a lot empathetic, a lot funnier, and dies a lot less o.O
Solas… you’re really ruining all those positives you built up by being Ianto Jones.
He masks it by being polite but once you realize what he’s actually saying. Oh, bring back Morrigan, at least being mean was just her defense mechanism.
And then he dumps you! After calling your tats tacky!
I wonder if he un-dumps you after his broken third companion quest. I don’t think anyone has gotten it to work yet.
You Monster.
? I’m just curious. As far as I know no one has gotten “What Lies Dormant” to work, all I’ve heard about it is devs confirming it’s supposed to be in game and players complaining it doesn’t trigger.
Oh. I thought you were just trolling – A lot of people like to make jokes about non-existent quests to fix unwelcome outcomes in games.
Well I mean I don’t know if it would change anything about the romance I guess we’ll know when the (hopefully) next patch fixes it. Hopefully they fix the Dorian quest that bugs for so many people too (and Coles ambiant stuff around skyhold stuff…I can never get all of them because at least one won’t trigger for me)
which one, the last bit for the daggers?
The bread on the battlements for me. The NPC that’s supposed to start it just doesn’t show up in my game.
Yeah, I love that only Dalish can romance him, but he’s really a dick about everything Dalish.
“The Dalish are stupid and don’t even understand those stupid tats on your stupid faces.”
“Wha-”
“I want to change your face.”
“Uhm-”
“Oh and I’m breaking up with you.”
Really? DAMN. My first playthrough IS Dalish so I could date him. x.x
Female elf only
Preach it. Morrigan was at least entertaining in her insults.
Man my dwarf inquisitor was not happy with his bullshit, is there ever a situation where saying ‘you’re one of the good ones’ doesn’t make you a complete ass? I kinda found it hilarious though in a “god some of my companions are such DICKS.” way, and I do find the character of Solas interesting. Can’t wait to do an elf run where I punch him (and then an elf run where I romance him. I gotta admit I love almost all the characters in inquisition, even the huge assholes.)
Calling someone, in so many words, “a credit to your race” is never not a horribly racist thing to say, and it’s even worse because it’s a clear attempt at showing yourself off as “more enlightened”…
Actually, it sorta depends on which race they are. (All fictional races are included here in the definition of ‘race’)
And how the sentiment is conveyed.
If it’s being meant to convey “You do your people proud.”, then it’s a compliment, whether or not their race is morally upstanding.
If it’s “You’re a hell of a lot more likeable than the rest of your species.”, then they’re just being a dick.
Or, maybe, your race just isn’t very likeable. Since this is a fantasy world where there are significant differences between the races, it is entirely likely that some are less likeable than others.
In this case there’s a difference between being racist and being a dick since one race may actually be better than another race.
I personally don’t believe there is a “better” race, in just about any fantasy setting, never mind reality.
There are races–civilizations and cultures defined by members of their originating species rather than the other way around–that do not earn my respect, such as (for a rather off-topic example) the Elves of Tales of Symphonia, but there is no real reason to say that the Humans or the Angels, or even the Half-Elves are better or worse than any of the other prevalent races, including the Elves.
Ever watch the Justice League episode where they went into an alternate world and met Green Lantern’s boyhood heroes from his favorite comic book? GL’s reaction to being told “you’re a credit to your people” was PRICELESS.
(Especially since it really was intended as a complement along the lines of “your actions bring honor to everyone of your racial background.” Hawkgirl had considerably more reason to be pissed. “One word and you’ll be the fastest man alive with a limp.”)
It’s funny, I played as a human rogue first time through and found Solas perfectly pleasant and respectful. As I played as a Dalish warrior though I just found myself thinking “what a patronizing douchebag.”
MOD NOTE: Mind the spoilers, dude, I haven’t finished the game yet, thanks a lot.
Isnt there a questline or an epilogue scene or something that hints that Solas is the Dread Wolf? So he isnt just a racist old man… hes a racist old God.
HEY! Mind the spoilers for the folks that haven’t finished the game yet!
But yes, the scene plays after the credits roll. So watch the credits, and then hate Solas even more, with good reason.
Seriously, dude. Spoiling that for everyone is a HUGE dick move.
I just started my first re-play, and I can’t look at him without wanting to hit him. >:(
Also the Qunari smell bad…but you don’t Inquisitor and that’s the point.
Wait, elves get to hit him? I can’t wait.
I started off liking him, but it has quickly declined to the point where I don’t take him along ever anymore
It comes from an event that happens when you get really low approval with him. He starts ranting about how horrible you are and that you’re proof of everything he hates about (insert race here).
It’s available to all races. Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ4OkZun3VA
I can’t say I’ve gotten that far. I needed to take a break from the game after discovering just how bad the Iron Bull romance was–for me, anyway. Playing a female Qunari, but being issued a *safe-word* during the second encounter was bad enough. Coupled with that, being told that what I *needed*. . . in his opinion, anyway. . . was a nice safe place where someone else was in charge. . . made me feel like I’d unwittingly entered BDSM territory. And the coup d’grace was being told that no, nothing I said would change his behavior, that “this is who we are” (in his opinion) and that anything I said from my perspective was meaningless?
Different strokes for different folks, and all that, but this hit just about every twitch reaction I have about controlling, manipulative people, so no thank you. Especially since all this hit at around the same time as hearing Alistair speak with such love and *respect* for my original Warden. Two people, together as equal partners, against the world.
So, nope, haven’t gotten that far with Solas, but he hasn’t said anything offensive to me so far, but then. . . haven’t started his personal quests yet, either. *shrug*
Bull says straight up that he was raised in a culture where sex is about working out stress and not love or intimacy or anything like that, so his whole conversation about what goes on in the bedroom is less “I am in control of this relationship and you don’t get any say” and more “Hey you want a casual fling, this is what this shop is selling and if there’s nothing that interests you I guess you’ll have to find a different one.” I don’t think you even get an option to start a romantic relationship with him until you’ve knocked boots twice. That’s just the way that character rolls, but it’s kind of disingenuous to paint him as abusive or manipulative when everything about his character revolves around boundaries and consent. Like, he even gets Cassandra’s permission to flirt with her and apologizes when he thinks he’s offended her (to which she replies that she didn’t tell him to stop, just to be aware it’s never gonna happen).
Cassandra and Bull flirting is my favorite thing ever. After the “never gonna happen” conversation, she initiated the next couple of interactions, and you could tell they were just flirty bros now. That initial conversation made me laugh so hard that I had to pause the game because I couldn’t see. As Sera says, Cassandra is not nearly as buttoned up as she seems.
If you do things that earn tons of Sola’s disapproval, you get his “racist grandpa is angry with you” speech instead and any race can punch him in that one. My Adaar took the opportunity.
My apostate mage gets along with him, but only because she learned very quickly to take Viv to the boss fights (that build that Coelasquid found for her is totally sweet; cut my dragon fight time in half) and Dorian everywhere else.
Yeah, I two-mage it. Sera on DPS and Blackwall as the meat shield, with Cassandra when I think that there’s gonna be special trouble and Iron Bull when I think that I want to CAUSE special trouble, in inappropriate social settings. I have a lot of head canon going on with that one.
Knock him out, dress him as a goat, and leave him out in the courtyard.
It’s the perfect crime, they’ll never tie the tossing back to you.
If you’re an elf and talking to solas, at one point you talk about “being the elvhen that stood against man, refused to bow down. A true dalish” to which he slow claps and says “oh! An Instance of the dalish actually being right! We should plant a tree in celebration to mark the day!” in the most dickish manner possible
It’s like, right off the bat when you meet him as an Elf, ooooohhhhh man we got into it immediately.
Honestly, he tries to “verbal slap” the Dalish but I think the Elven researcher lady in haven delivers the best Dalish verbal slap, if you make a comment about “It’s a shame you had to live in a Circle instead of being raised by the Dalish.” and she goes: “Don’t let my lack of tattoos fool you, I was dalish until they kicked me out to die in the wilderness as a CHILD because they had too many mages in the clan.”
Dalish Inquisitor: Foot in mouth.
The worst part is that Minaeve (said researcher) would probably be a better match for Solas than the Inquisitor. Interested in studying magic outside of the killing studies: Check. Introverted and biting: Check. Doesn’t like the Dalish: Check!
Also Minaeve is just the best!
True, but given how he is about Templars and the Circle, he’d spend the first 30 minutes getting to know her by insulting everyone she’s ever known, loved, or respected.
Yea, Minaeve hit me pritty hard with that comment. Was completely speechless after that one. Not the usual ‘I can’t pick’ speechless, but a true speechless.
Character design is awesome everywhere in this game
I think that it’s great that single line so significantly changes the character only if the Inquisitor is Dalish. She mentions that she was proudly Dalish until they kicked her out. I imagine if your Inquisitor is a Dalish mage then there’s a part of Minaeve that is jealous that the Inquisitor is the person she could have been. For the other Inquisitor choices she’s just some elf who seems a bit melancholy and socially awkward but if you’re Dalish she may actively hate you which really changes the fact that once you get to Skyhold she starts giving you the middle-man.
But please, excuse me, this isn’t the place to start analyzing ancillary characters. There’s probably somewhat writing some very good completely head-canoned Minaeve fan fiction that I either need to find or write.
But at the the end she condescendingly calls you “lethallan”. Damn! Minaeve is a bitter thing and I love her for it.
After this, you need to play again as another character! And draw more Manly DA:I stories. Yes, you definitely need to do that :) Cole will Greatly Approve.
“Solas Disaproves”. “Solas Greatly Disaproves.” “Solas Thinks You Kick Puppies For Fun.” “Solas Is Very Disapointed And Is Going To Have A Word With Your Mum.” Yeaaah, Solas and I did not get along during my first run through, which really surprised me as I was playing a thoughtful, kind hearted temperate mage.
Then I played as a savvy dwarf rogue who rolled with having been a Carta enforcer, but who showed a minimum of curiosity about the Fade and all this weird non-dwarf stuff she could barely comprehend, and suddenly Solas was my BFF. The guy is certainly, ah, COMPLICATED. I got the “You’re not bad for a dwarf” thing, though it didn’t strike me as so very condescending – for Solas (Solas bordered on outright hate with my Qunari mage, so we never got the balcony talk – but unfortunately I did not get quite such a bad rep with him that I got the dialogue with option to punch him, either, blah)
That’s Bioware for you. Creating NPCs you hate to love and love to hate since 1995. They make great comic fuel though!
Honestly, he’s not that difficult to understand – He feels spirits are better people than mortals, and he favors two things; freedom, and the pursuit of knowledge. That’s basically his entire character too. Did you not notice that he gets an approval boost every time you ask him questions?
Yeah, but once you get into his good books, you gotta be careful about even questions. It’s like playing Minesweeper!
Yeah, I noticed, in fact that’s the only way I can get some positive approval from him out of the gate. But other than that, it’s very, very easy to get negative approval from Solas in conversation, even choosing conversation options that are mild or positive. Conversations with him end up being a little bit like walking a minefield. I do know where he’s coming from, what he is, etc etc, so I’m not saying his character doesn’t make sense, but it’s a bit stressful talking to him or doing his quests IMO ^^;
I have to say, I was impressed with his reaction in the Faded For Her quest when I did NOT do what he asked at the very end of the quest (trying not to spoil too much). Most companions get hissy if I don’t do their favored outcome, but Solas immediately calms down and accepts he was probably not heading down a good path. That was classy. Other times…not so much.
Please don’t stop drawing DAI comics. They are pretty much always spot on and brilliant. I’m looking forward to what happens to them when you get closer to the endgame.
“Uh, yeah, Solas? Can you not be such a dick? Whatever, Imma go hang out with literally anyone else (except Vivienne), cause, you know, they’re actually nice. *cough* bigoted elf *cough*.” Should totally be a dialogue option when reacting to this. Also, thanks for going all high elf on us Solas ’cause we reeaallllyyy needed one of those.
I love how the curl of the Inquisitor’s horns in these pages changes with every panel. It’s great.
What makes this even worse…is that, your Qunari is Tal-Vashoth. So not being ‘held in check’ by the qun…does that make you seem even worse in his eyes?
And yeah I didn’t catch this the first time I saw it. Makes me want to punch him.
No, being Tal Vashoth makes you better in his eyes. He HATES the Qun, it’s the whole reason he hates the Qunari, they’ve removed all freedom, even freedom of thought and it sicken him.
In Solas’ UI: “Stan greatly disapproves”.
Seriously, I just cannot get enough of that frown. You always make the best frowns.
Solas can be a HUGE dick. On the other hand he’s one of the few companions who consistently approves of helping others and acting selflessly.
He’s a lot more like Sera and Vivienne than he’d like to admit; he’s got a skewed world-view, and he’s not gonna change it for anyone.
P.S. dwarf inquisitor for life!
I’m playing a dwarf on my second playthrough, and I’ve been disappointed with it. Dwarves in Dragon Age do not even enter the fade during sleep because they don’t dream – yet here am I, a dwarf who has physically entered the fade – and later actually has a dream. Yet none of the dialogue comments on this.
I had the same reaction, and was very surprised. DA:I is so detailed-oriented in a lot of the conversations. There’s one line of dialogue they recorded and that plays only IF you’re a warrior and IF you took Templar spec and IF you have a relationship with Cullen. Yet they missed out on the fact that my dwarf inquisitor had a dream for the first time in her existence and possibly that of the species, bar Sandal’s visiony experiences. That was odd, I expected some reaction.
I have been playing him as very devout, and it also bugs me that him being a dwarf is used as an argument against him being chosen by Andraste. A divine miracle is actually a very reasonable explanation for a dwarf with a magic hand and fade powers.
Its not completely unprecedented for Dwarves to dream under the influence of magic. Dwarven Grey Wardens have the same nightmares as any other Grey Wardens.
Yeah, was not even going to go the romance Solas route, and NEVER WILL. My first finished playthrough was elf mage, and, despite the fact that we should have quite a bit in common, we spent half of our conversations shouting at each other. My Qunari is going the icy politeness route, just to prove a point, and I might start a dwarf just to shout at him some more.
I was tempted to, after all the spoilery stuff about him…but not anymore. No way. It’s really sad too because when it comes to his intelligence and wisdom magic and Fade-wise, I found him really interesting, and wanted to learn more about him…it was so disappointing to see how racist he was.
I know I’ve seen a video of a female Qunari punching Solas, so…
i rolled an elf mage so your saying i get to punch him in the face? awesome.
I mean… If you want to keep drawing Dragon Age, I certainly would not object… And it’s definitely not because you drew my party or anything.
I really liked him at the start. But as I did all the elvish missions with him, and started talking to him more about things that weren’t Spirits and the Fade, I came to the conclusion that Sera was right about him.
After all his “good person for a Quanari” talk, after I didn’t manage to help Briala and told him I was sorry I couldn’t do more for her… “Why would I care? Oh, because she’s an elf? Really, Inquisitor, you shouldn’t judge people by their appearance.”
**** you Solas. **** you.
Yes solas can be a dick….
And he still dresses as an unwanted apostate hobo as per Vivienne
…. unwanted = unwashed
Goddamn Swype
I was wondering why everything I did pissed Solas off. My human mage is not racist and wants to keep others safe.
Not complaining, because the Dragon Age comics are awesome, but I miss Canada Guy.
I killed all the dragons, shut all the rifts, and made everyone happy except Solas, so I punched him in his stupid elf face.
Have you tried being an elf with him? Oh my god, it is hilarious. He has this whole rant about how the Dalish are terrible and don’t hold with the ancient traditions and are blatant liars. He even gets offended if you tell him that he should stop being such a dick and if he knows so much why hasn’t he shared it.
Then again, knowing him, he’d just walk into a Dalish camp and start insulting them. It’s what he does with everyone else.
I’m surprised Solas didn’t call him “articulate”.
I’m okay with Solas. He can be harsh with his opinions but he’s surprisingly open-minded about it and is willing to apologize for being too rash with his words (like with Blackwall, Varric or Sera). I personally dislike Sera the most of the companions. Unlike Vivienne and Solas who has enough exposure to the world to at least sound like they understand what their talking about, Sera sounds like a complete arse like when she refused to believe the Fade is real or saying that the elven gods were demons and everything else is in the temple were lies. Sure, the Dalish tend to be jerks but Sera’s not really any better in comparison either.
But he has a point though?
Qunari are hella cool and few people will deny that, but cool doesn’t equal good. What Solas says is true for most of the Qunari, and most of other races he ‘offends’. If the shoe fits, wear it.
Much like Fenris this fandom either hates Solas for poor, superficial reasons, or loves him for borderline headcanon ones.
Looks like we got a racist grandpa elf on our hands.
why is pointing out fact-supported bad things about a different culture considered racist nowadays? may it be real life or fantasy, that’s a terrible mindset.
(i got used of being able to edit my comments everywhere so i post without thinking of more things to add, oops)
the way Solas acts makes somewhat more sense knowing his backstory (which i was sorry to see someone spoiled for you, when i saw that comment it really hit my nerve and while i’d love to debate this story i don’t want to spoil more).
there’s a huge, huge difference between racist and simply knowing too many negative facts to be able to instantly accept when something good comes out of it.
and as i said again, the qunari, while really badass in most aspects, are not a pleasant nation and Solas’ words about them are mostly true.
He knows some things about Qunari, and the inquisitor doesn’t apply to these things, so naturally he was pleasantly surprised, yet that won’t stop him from being critical of something he believes is very negative – which, with qunari, is mostly the lack of individuality.
calling Solas racist (especially as he is critical of elves as well) is disregarding the character’s (and some of the world’s) canon story and personality depth, which generally a lot of fans tend to do with all the characters either into the negative or positive way (fenris is a good example of both cases). either way irks me a lot as a writer.
White knighting Solas and acting like people who criticize him are being ignorant is showing some pretty single-minded cherry-picking, dude. Like he flat-out calls Bull a “Mindless, Soulless drone” when he’s mourning the Chargers and saying they died like heroes if you choose to protect the dreadnought. Like, no pal, sorry, even contextually that’s a shitty person thing to do. Especially since, if the Chargers don’t die a bunch of Qunari do. It’s a choice between saving a bunch of people you got one shallow scene of character development with or saving a bunch of people you’ve never met and will contribute to the Inquisition’s spy network. I saved the Chargers in my playthrough because I felt like it was in-character for a Vashoth to not appreciate the gravity of what that meant, but in complete honesty letting them die seems like the all-around least destructive choice, people will die either way.
And in this particular conversation, Solas refers to you as a “Qunari” despite the fact that he has explicitly mentioned in previous conversations he’s aware that you are a Vashoth who has never been exposed to the Qun. So in this context, he’s using the term “Qunari” as a racial umbrella rather than a cultural one, referring to all Qunari/Vashoth/Tal Vashoth in one fell swoop. So this isn’t just an “I think the Qun is stifling” thing, this is an “every person who looks like you is genetically predisposed to being and ignorant brute” thing. Which is a shitty racist Grandpa thing to say. And all the excuses you’re giving him for saying racist grandpa things are the reasons racist grandpas think their racism is justified. That’s pretty much what separates racist grandpa racism from original recipe racism, racist grandpas pull the “I am older and more worldly so my racism is a quantifiable observation” and ignore their own sweeping generalizations, lack of context-sensitivity, and deliberate misrepresentation of what people say to fit it into their own world view.
I’m not saying he’s a poorly written character, he’s just a well-executed racist grandpa.
Part of me wonders if he’s spent so long getting to know the spirits that he’s become like them, wholly embodying a specific concept and utterly unable to understand outside of it. Like Justice did he’d be technically a good person but unable to function in the mortal world.
It’s pretty much lampshaded during his arguments with Vivienne, he makes a few good points but offers no alternatives.
I know everyone is talking about how ‘racist’ Solas is. But for me I kinda expected it. I mean he goes all over these places of great history and of immense scaled battles, I expected some of the lingering attitudes to stick to him. Alot of these places during their peak times had their own brand of hatred and violence, so they certainly weren’t picnic areas he was dreaming in. And if I’d seen all those old memories, seeing the truths behind certain key moments ….I’d be a cranky bastard too. Doesn’t mean I can’t try to share what I’ve learned when its important though.
Never stop the Dragon Age! Allow is to conquer your comic! Have commander show up at the coclave and become the Herald! Have him team with the Iron Bull, Blackwall, and Dorian(?) Manly Men and a relatively manlymage
But is he wrong? I mean, the Qunari are kind of cool, but they’re also pretty violent. Like Klingons.
Not really more than the rest of the world.
There are bandits everywhere, some of them have horns. Right now mages are killing everyone, does that make all mages inherently violent, and only kept in check by the Templars? Or is it simply a result of the state the world is in?
True, but don’t even the Qunari view themselves as savage people held in check by the Qun? Like, Bull thinks Tal-Vashoth are basically all murdering monsters, and he’s a hippie by Qunari standards. I feel like Solas is pretty damned racist, but in the Qunari case he’s really only turning their own rhetoric back on them.
They think if you follow the Qun and then leave it you become a monster. Like, if you follow this path it will lead to self-actualization but if you start down it and back out you’re damaged goods. That aside there’s like absolutely no reason for him to be trying to “turn the rheoric” around on the Inquisitor, who he has pointedly acknowledged has never been exposed to the Qun. Like, obviously the Inquisitor does not think Qunari-as-a-race living without the Qun are going to lose their shit because he knows he personally has never lived under the Qun.
Solas mus be really different depending on what race and class you are, becuase I’ve played as a Dallish mage and insted of the whole ” your one of the good ones” speech I got the “Tell me if your peaple could produce someone as respectable and insightful as you have I been wrong in my thoughts about them?” Or is it that I just played way different then everyone else?
It seems to depend on how you ask him why he’s asking if the Mark changed you. If you play coy/joke a bit he’s fairly polite and introspective, but if you are more blunt “What are you on about?” Even if you are Dalish, he’ll launch into his diatribe about how the Dalish are stupid and backwards and get everything wrong.
Solas – anagram of assol. Ok that’s stretching a bit…
Stretching an assol? Oh my…
Looks like qunari can punch him inna face, too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ4OkZun3VA
A friend of mine showed me your comic two days ago.
I’m caught up now. Please draw faster. This has become a sickness.
Solas: A debit to his race.
“stop drawing nonstop dragon age crap in the next week or so”
Stop? STOP WHY?
I am living the beauties of this gem vicariously through your hilarious retelling!
Goddamn computer had to had a heart attack now, but of course…
I don’t see the problem. He hates Qunari because the Qun is horrible, he likes the Inquisitor because they are not followers of the Qun, he spells it out perfectly if you listen. The Qun is horrible, though for some twisted reason a lot of the fans seem to have romanticised it.
Solas is the big racist grandpa because he’s actually been around to see how each race has fucked everything up.
Humans started the blights, enslaved the elves, persecute mages and fumble around for any way to fight the blight without any idea of why what they do works or what the consequences might be.
The dwarves have stubborned themselves to near extinction and make little attempts at even trying to regain what they’ve lost or learning from the mistakes of the past, content to just continue on until there’s nothing left. Though Varric can offer a different perspective he seems to accept.
And the elves are a shadow of what they once were, their empires are gone, their culture is lost, they revere the ones who once enslaved them and vilify the one who tried to free them and instead of rebuilding they’re too busy playing ‘we’re better than everyone else’ while clinging to anything they can call elven even if it’s terrible within it’s actual context.
Let’s be honest, if we went to sleep one day and woke up and every nation had fucked itself over so thouroughly the entire world was crap we’d be pissy too. Especially if few around us seemed to care or were willing to do anything about it.
Loving the DA:I comics though, they’ve been lots of fun.
I think part of the problem is that like many fantasy worlds, Dragon Age has a tendency to homogenise entire species. Inquisition gets away from that a little, but there’s still no, for example, surface dwarf nations. When people talk about ‘dwarves’, 99% of the time they mean Orzammar. It’s only humanity that has distinct nations like Ferelden, Orlais and Navarre to draw distinctions between.
There’s a sense that when Solas talks shit about ‘Qunari’ he’s being racist because he’s stereotyping an entire species… But that species is ALREADY stereotyped, pretty much. It’s not like talking about black people in our world, because in our world ‘black people’ is a diverse ethnicity covering everything from New York natives to Istanbul outskirt farmers and more besides. But in Dragon Age, the Qunari really ARE a homogenous culture walking in lockstep with itself, with only the Tal-Vashoth to act as any kind of counterpoint.
Well, sort of. Most other dwarven nations have been obliterated (Kal’Hirol) or “lost”/very far away (Kal-Sharok). I assume we’ll get some exposure to Kal-Sharok society in DA4 because Kal-Sharok is up near Tevinter. And there are no surface dwarf countries precisely because they are so not homogenized. There’s no unity of “surface dwarf” culture. They might cling to tradition and even the caste system (like Bianca’s family), or have come to the surface entirely willingly for opportunities that don’t exist in Orzammar (Dagna), or perfectly content to make a good home wherever they happen to be (Varric, or should I say Viscount Tethras now?) They also don’t need their own country the same way the elves do. Dwarves aren’t oppressed anywhere on the surface. The lyrium trade means that the Chantry is not about to call an Exalted March on them, and Tevinter gives them a whole house of the Imperial Senate. They don’t need walls and borders and their own army, they’re fairly well assimilated.
The Qunari being “homogenized” is kind of the point. And it’s terrible. But even so, the only Qunari we’ve met are either military or spies. We don’t really have a full picture of the Qun, something that I also hope changes in DA4.
Loving the artwork and the storylines, totally binged out out on this comic when I discovered it (Cant remember how I got to it, but I reached this comic through your graphic on realistic male bodies and form vs. function (especially loved how you described the cartoon version of my favourite male body form as “fights bears on a mountain”, squeeee!), maybe it was through Girls with Slingshots…?). I just love the depth of character that you put into Commander Badass and how he deals with all the personalities around him. I’m waiting for the opportunity to use him as a humorous-yet-serious signpost for how to be a well-adjusted adult male (despite his crazy-ass beginnings) to a floundering young male, or even an immature wanna-be man.
Rambling aside, I wanted to thank you for the awesome comic (and Platinum Black too, love it) and I’d like to know if you subscribe to a voting platform or something like that where I can turn my appreciation for your efforts into numbers.
Cheers!
Solas STAHP, just talk about the Fade or magic. Everything else ever is just outside your wheelhouse.
I love how Solas is about a third of the Inquisitor’s width, is half his height, and is half as manly(qunari-ly, elfly?).
Pfft. I LOVE your Dragon Age comics. I would read an entire comic of yours devoted to JUST that. I still want a print of the “Our Champion” image of Varric doing a kegstand while Hawke supports him found on the tavern wall in one of the comics.
Punching him is a low approval thing, not a race thing.
Solas is a racist grandpa who thinks everything was better back in the day. The ancient elves sound like dicks, even my Dalish has realised that when she found out they had slaves of their own people. I like his character but he is not some perfect misunderstood woobie by any means.
“I’ll probably finish this game and stop drawing nonstop dragon age crap in the next week…”
WHY. ಠ_ಠ
Please make more. They are too fun!
Well ‘Racist Grandpa’ is going to be what I forever call Solas now after seeing that. It fits oddly well actually. (I don’t hate Solas I’m eh on him but that nick name for him still fits)
Kind of odd that both elf companions in this game really don’t like other elves or at least don’t like dalish elves.
Solas was out of my party the instant I had another option. Which was “anyone” because I was playing a mage.
Blackwall/Sera/Bull party 4 LYFE. They’re the most fun.
I wonder if the point of this scene was to show that, despite all of his intelligence and wisdom, there is something deeply, fundamentally screwed up about Solas. He’s arguably the most messed up party member in this game, if not the series. At least Anders had the excuse of being mentally fused with an insane demon.
Love the comic! (And no more Dragon Age? Noooo) I love your linework, btw, always wanted to say that. It’s so nice and dynamic.
Solas has a conversation with Varric that goes a bit that way, too, after they’ve spent some banters debating the fall of the dwarven kingdom and Solas kept pushing about why the dwarves aren’t rebuilding their empire. Solas says:
“Dwarves are the severed arm of a once mighty hero, lying in a pool of blood, undirected, whatever skill at arms it had gone forever. Although it might twitch to give the appearance of life, it will never dream.”
That is after Varric has spent like three banters explaining to him that he thinks just because they lost the empire, that doesn’t make dwarven life on the surface inherently less worth. Solas reluctantly agrees to that after they discuss a meatphor about a guy on an island, only to then, next banter, spit out that poetic slap in the face. Bless Varric’s heart, he just tells him not to say that kind of stuff around Carta dwarves (or some other more militant group), they might take it the wrong way. My Cadash probably would have veered towards the southern options on the dialogue wheel…
Totally not comic related. Love the new format for the Comments section. Thank you for making me brain hurt a little less, every time I obsessively scroll through and read all the comments. Also, Hugs for all the awesome work you are doing
“People are not simple. They cannot be summarized for easy reference in the manner of: ‘The elves are a lithe, pointy eared people who excel at poverty.'” -Sten
Well, they certainly CAN, but in that case it tells more about the one who is summarizing than those who are being summarized. And of course, Sten himself does that time to time during the first, albeit he’s more or less aware of it.
* does that time to time during the first game.
Yeah fuck Solas he was my Alistair and Carver of this game but way worse.
He’s especially mean towards the qunari and the dalish. The only reason why I romanced him in my first play through was because my friend had talked about him for a long time (I only got the game recently). But if not romancing him…man, Solas, why you gotta be so rude?
It’s a credit to Bioware’s world building and characterization that in a game where you can punch both a noble from the Evil Empire and an elf who knows all their lost history and feels that loss keenly, that punching the Tevinter makes me think, “What kind of monster would do such a thing?” and punching the elf makes me think, “Good. That bastard deserves so much worse.”
Nooooo, I loved Solas like the brother I never had lol. (maybe because the 360 didn’t get the extra DLC, I’m a little more wistful lol).
You are pretty right about his character, though. I was an elven mage, so we hit it off just great… I loved that he loved curiosity, such a neat way to gain his approval. He was well written, as were all the characters, it seems. (for the love of God, why couldn’t they give us Tresspasser :””'( )
well.. what do you now say about the mindless drone of the qun? Like.. after trespasser…wasnt he a bit right? (at least when you decide in a certain way)
Whether solas is right depends on the quizzi….and even then hes still right about the qun..
now bad feelings, boss.. right?
Fun fact, he says that about dwarves because of their weird relationship to the titans. He says a lot of fucked up shit that sounds totally horrible until you learn about who he is and what he really is saying.
What he did say about the qunari wasn’t anything like that though, lol. Just racist grandpa. However, the Qunari do intend to, you know, keep spreading the Qun whether any of us like it or not… just sayin’.+
I really love that the way the player interacts with a character actually seems to have an effect on their personality, and therefor whether you love them or hate them.
I ran a curious, open-minded, atheist elven mage, and I friggin’ loved Solas. He starts off rough but my character naturally tended toward convo options that he approved of, and he seemed to become more tolerant and considerate over the course of the game. Frankly, almost all of the companions were dicks to each other in some way. Everyone loves Dorian, but the first banter I got with him, he straight up called Blackwall a moron – no friendly ribbing or teasing involved, just a flat insult to the guy who had been keeping him from getting turned into a shishkabob by bandits for the last twenty minutes. Vivienne is the queen of bitchy cutting lines, I don’t think she got along with anybody, and Sera refuses to be even acknowledge Cole as anything but an ‘it’ or ‘that thing’. ‘Ignorantly racist but getting better as he learns and admits he was wrong’ Solas could be downright delightful by comparison.
And, not to spoiler too much, but with the trespasser DLC I think they give a pretty compelling reason for Solas to think of other races the way he does… that it’s basically a survival mechanism. He’s trying to convince himself of everyone else’s inferiority so he won’t feel as guilty about something he intends to do, and if you’ve managed to make him to see other people as, y’know, *people*, he admits that he understands that now and it’s going to make everything much harder.
So, depending on your relationship with him, Solas is either a sneering, angry, racist asshole one mustache-twirl short of a villain, or a sad, thoughtful guy with a lot of misconceptions but also a willingness to grow and re-examine them.
That is some damned good writing and game design, in my book.