corseque:

@laureljupiter actually nearly every DA3 character is a foil to Solas. It really comes out when you listen to the party banter. I could write an essay about all of them.

– Sera: old vs young; couth vs uncouth; both elven rebel leaders; both with trickster characteristics; what is the extent of one’s social responsibility? Elfiness elfiness elfiness; Sera saying she hates pride and “pride cookies” while Solas’ name literally means “Pride”; I could go on for years

– Blackwall: identity; betrayal; confrontation and acceptance of past deceptions and wrongdoings; morality and forgiveness; hiding in plain sight as a way to find yourself; atonement; “you must accept the pain to make things better”

– Iron Bull: slavery; thought crime; disassociation (the people around you are not real people, you must be prepared to kill them); friendship; high-level strategic thinking; spying, lying and espionage; the mesmerizing (ironic?) fact that Solas only starts to respect Iron Bull if he chooses his personal friendships over his loyalty to his homeland

– Dorian: slavery; the great responsibility that is being privileged and talented in a corrupt society built on slavery and founded on death; it sure is fun to be a wizard nerd
– Vivienne: the Question of Fashion; power and position and responsibility; politics and court life, being a courtier; she literally reminds Solas of an Evanuris
– Cassandra: determination to do the right thing despite doubts; divine faith and belief; learning that the organization you belong to is corrupt; seeking Truth (and lying); Cassandra possibly becoming Divine vs. Solas’ godhood
– Varric: acceptance or rejection of being displaced in a strange world; gambling; acceptance of loss vs railing against loss; what should the Man on the Island do?; the split on the question of Cole’s humanity

– Cole: angels and spirits and their attraction to mortality; becoming embodied in a harsh world; dreaming and the waking world; experience vs. naïveté; mindfulness meditation; compassion and pride; “you cannot change your nature by wishing”

– Ameridan: sacrificed everything to save his people from a god, but doomed them to slavery instead; his lover died calling out to him through dreams; waking up eons later to find everything gone; “it takes everything from you”
– Corypheus: the parallels and contrasts to Solas are multiple, deliberate and obvious
– Inquisitor: marked to lead a divine organization; can the world be saved without destroying it?; is it possible to wield power and influence righteously?; the inevitable corruption of organizations; the question of this world’s reality and value

I know people might not like to consider it, but I feel like some of these characteristics might have been decided mainly to foil with Solas. Like, I would argue that especially aspects of Sera and Blackwall were written with the idea that Solas would be in this game in mind.