The Game Awards were announced earlier this month, and with them came a new batch of teasers for upcoming titles. BioWare dropped a new teaser for Dragon Age 4, in which Varric promises that he’s got the player’s back against “demons, dragons, darkspawn, even the Dread Wolf.”
Inquisition companion Solas was revealed to be the Dread Wolf at the end of the last game. Since then, the Dread Wolf has been hyped up as Dragon Age 4’s villain in the trailer, developer comments, and released concept art. However, once players know the full backstory of the Dread Wolf, they might not consider him to be as evil as he’s portrayed.
The Birth of the Dread Wolf
The elves of Dragon Age largely believe the Dread Wolf to be a malevolent trickster god. In Dragon Age: Origins the Dalish elves tell stories of the Dread Wolf to scare their children. In reality, however, Solas was never a god. Long before humans arrived on the continent of Thedas, the magical elven empire of Elvhenan ruled the land. A select group of elite elven mages called the Evanuris proclaimed themselves to be gods. They began enslaving the elven people, marking their faces with vallaslin to indicate ownership by a worshipper of a specific “god.”
When the other Evanuris killed Mythal, whose spirit would later possess Flemeth, Solas led a rebellion against the elven gods. He began freeing the elven slaves, removing their vallaslin using magic, an act he’ll also perform for a romanced elven Inquisitor. During the rebellion, the Evanuris gave Solas the name Fen'Harel or “The Dread Wolf” and proclaimed him a trickster and traitor of the gods. This reputation remains with the Dalish elves in Origins, and in Inquisition Solas indicates that he is embarrassed by his reputation among his own kind.
Solas used his magic to separate the world of magic and the material realm. The material realm remained, but magic, and the Evanuris, were banished to the Fade. The Dread Wolf then erected the Veil, a barrier between the two realities.
Tragically, it was by sacrificing their magic for their freedom that the elves doomed themselves. Humanity arrived on Thedas after the creation of the Veil. The Tevinter Imperium was established, Elvhenan was conquered, its capital was razed using Tevinter blood magic, and its people were enslaved. The elves would remain in the service of Tevinter until the Prophet Andraste began to free them during her first Exalted March.
It wasn’t only the humans who caused harm to the elves over their troubled history. When some elves fled from the Tevinter Imperium to the dwarven Thaig of Cad’Halash, Dragon Age's dwarves destroyed the Thaig to avoid the humans finding out and risking their alliance.
In Inquisition Solas reveals that he plans to bring down the Veil he created, allowing the elves to ascend to their former glory even if bringing down the Veil causes countless casualties to every other race of Thedas. However, it’s not entirely clear how bringing down the Veil would kill the other races of Thedas, only that Solas is willing to sacrifice them in the chaos if needs be.
From Solas’ perspective, bringing down the Veil makes a lot of sense. Solas used magic to defeat an elite group of mages who claimed to be gods, but in doing so robbed many of his own people of magic and doomed his species to slavery. Solas wasn’t born into a world with the Veil – it’s something he created in his own lifetime. In some sense, tearing it down is a part of his penitence to his people.
The separation of the Fade and the material realm also causes huge problems in the world of Dragon Age. When the Tevinter magisters entered the Fade themselves they inadvertently caused the creation of the darkspawn and the First Blight, which likely would have been impossible if Solas hadn’t separated the Fade from the material realm to begin with. Though Solas is willing to risk many lives to do so, he is also returning the universe of Dragon Age to its natural state, free from his own manipulation, and potentially ending the suffering of elves all over the continent.
Solas' Judgement
While all of this makes Solas more morally complicated, it doesn’t mean his plan is flawless, morally or pragmatically. After all, if Solas brings down the Veil he would also seem to be reintroducing the Evanuris to the world, who may enslave the elves yet again. Even if they don’t, the fact that the Evanuris raised themselves up as gods in Dragon Age and began enslaving their own kind makes it clear that the elven empire wasn’t without its suffering, even among the elves themselves.
There may be far darker forces present in the Fade than there were when Solas separated it from the material realm as well. Corypheus from Inquisition, one of the original Tevinter magisters to breach the Fade, claims that they entered the Maker’s Golden City and found it empty. If that’s true, then whatever really created the darkspawn could still be in the Fade waiting to be freed.
There also appear to be other forces beyond Solas’ control that were revealed in Inquisition. A Titan was revealed in Inquisition’s The Descent DLC, and it was implied that discoveries about the Titans might be able to explain the nature of lyrium, a magical mineral connected to the Fade. Simply put, after thousands of years of slumber Solas doesn’t know what sort of havoc he could be unleashing by destroying the Veil.
Hopefully, players will have the option to sympathize with and possibly even aid Solas in some way during Dragon Age 4. Though he may be destructive, his cause it certainly morally complicated enough to make roleplaying helping him believable, especially for an elf character. Much remains to be revealed beyond the Dragon Age 4 trailer, however, including if the next game will have multiple playable races at all. Whatever path it goes down, BioWare’s storytellers will need to be sure to keep the moral complexity of the Dread Wolf plotline in mind when creating options in the next game.
Dragon Age 4 is in development.