Solas Better Die at the End of Dragon Age: The Veilguard

It's time BioWare.

By Tyler Fischer

Fen'Harel. Lord of Tricksters. The Dread Wolf. He Who Hunts Alone. Solas has accrued many titles over time. The elven god of betrayal and rebellion was a major character in Dragon Age: Inquisition, and especially its DLC. As far as we can tell, the story of Dragon Age: The Veilguard centers around him and his temerarious pursuit to restore his people back to their former glory. More than this, he's at the center of Dragon Age lore. It's very difficult to remove a character like Solas once introduced, but that is exactly what BioWare must do, or else the series will live on in the shadow of the Dreadwolf.

Solas Deserves to Die

The last thing Solas deserves is to be stripped of his legacy in order for BioWare to comfortably fit his existence into the future of the series. There are plenty of happy endings that can be written for Solas, many of which likely include sitting on a beach somewhere with the Warden, Hawke, the Inquisitor, and Commander Shepard. Something straight out of Mass Effect 3's Citadel DLC. Solas is a tragic character though, fueled and haunted by regret, mutated by pride. The Lavellans out there will never feel happiness again, but Solas deserves to triumph or to fail, to finish his mission or to die trying. He didn't claw and crawl his way through the ages to be misdirected at the last second down a path of redemption. 

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Too Powerful 

If Solas survives the events of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, what does that mean for future games? He is far too powerful to just fade into the background when it comes time for players to once again save the world in the next game. That is assuming he gives up on his obsessive pursuit to author the future. Even then, surely the hero of the next game would hunt him down like Shepard did Garrus in Mass Effect 2 when they need to save the world and there is an ancient, powerful elven god running around Thedas. You obviously need to recruit that guy. If this is not plausible, and you're not going to kill him, then the only option is to neuter the Dreadwolf. That's a fate worse than death though. You could find a way to lock him away, or write an ambiguous ending that BioWare devs of the future have to answer for in every Dragon Age Q&A in perpetuity, but again this feels like the Dreadwolf going out with a whimper, his tail between his legs. 

Too Many of These Characters

Dragon Age already has a Solas problem as well. There are too many important, powerful characters that fans would literally die for running around Thedas, or in some cases, trapped in the fade. There's going to be a double blight in Dragon Age: The Veilguard and all we are going to get from The Warden is a letter about a narrative thread BioWare will never make good on. Now that Hawke can be trapped in the Fade, it's also hard to imagine they will feature prominently going forward. There are literal legends walking around Thedas, unaccounted for, while the world is on the verge of being destroyed. At best we get cameos from these heroes that rarely feel sufficient. In other words, the last thing we need is more of these characters going forward in the Dragon Age universe. 

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An Unfortunate Consequence 

An unfortunate consequence of the Solas saga is all the elven lore. In the video game space, Dragon Age lore is second to none, even if it is a little messy at times. It's a matter of personal taste, but the elven lore is the weakest part of the broader Dragon Age lore. It's often complicated in comparison, and overwhelming to learn and remember at times. But more importantly, it feels the most like generic high fantasy. 

Dragon Age is at its best when I'm shotgunning down some Darkspawn blood with Alistair, Daveth, and Jory and turning Broodmothers into a decoration for fire place mantels. Grey Wardens. Darkspawn. The Blight. This is all peak Dragon Age, and the more the series has shifted focus from all of this the more it has struggled to stand out. Road trips in the Deep Roads to the sound of Marilyn Mansion is just one of many great things Solas has taken from us. 

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