The Orb? Aside from Solas’ noted use of an Orb of Destruction to bring about the Breach and the Big Bad in Inquisition (again, oopsie), Solas’ aim was to wake the Elven Gods, or the Evanuris, back up again. There are a few other components we’re left to scrutinize: What’s with the tree? Aside from the tree imagery in Solas’s tarot from the previous games, it’s likely that this tree represents the vhenadahl, the tree which represents the Elven homeland of Arlathan (the one Solas accidentally cut all future elves off from forever by locking the gods away, oopsie). The crux of it all? Andraste, magic, and the core of Thedas’ social/religious/political structure itself. So the wolf on the right is The Dread Wolf, the figure on the left is Solas himself reckoning with his own past. In true BioWare trickery, The Dread Wolf had been hiding in tapestries and lore all since Origins. Who is Solas? Well, in the third-act shoe-drop of Inquisition, we learn that Solas is an awakened demigod of the elves, The Dread Wolf, who was responsible for trapping all the elven gods away for millenia in a revolutionary prank act gone wrong. If I have to connect any more pieces for you, I’m worried. The cloak, the stars, the staff, the ears… I mean, look at the wolf tarot card, which you receive at the end of Inquisition: Solas, cloaked, walking away at night, staff in hand, trailed by a three-eyed wolf. It is clear, even without Gareth David-Lloyd’s voiceover, that the character we are looking at in this image is Solas. Oh, who’s that in the third card? Why it’s Solas, the dear elven pal we love to hate and hate to love. Tevinter versus the Chantry versus Magic is a real looming shadow in the games, and it’s something I hope we see more of in the next one. She’s not only central to the core conflict of the games (mages versus Templars) but she was controversially sympathetic to the plight of elves in Tevinter (the game’s metaphor for Bad Fascist Nation). Andraste has been a major figure in the Dragon Age games, serving as prophet for the Chantry, Thedas’ major religion among humans and Templars. It’s almost definitely Andraste, the mortal woman who married god, was betrayed by one of her followers, and subsequently burnt at the stake. Here we’ve got to get into a little speculation, but I’m happy to oblige. So that just leaves us with one burning question: who is this figure? See the figure? Her horrible hollow face? The red tendrils dripping from the base of the statue? If they’re not the same figure, I’ll eat my hat. First of all, it’s very likely that this is the relic the Champion of Kirkwall is tasked with retrieving from the Primeval Thaig in Dragon Age 2’s first act. Okay, the thirty-second slow pan over a crumbling relic may have seemed a little gratuitous, but it actually gives us a lot to work with.
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