moonsomniari asked:
[spoilers] I was gonna write this in the tags but didn't wanna spoil anyone since I do have moots I've successfully annoyed them into playing FFXIV - BUT I just wanted to say, I actually found the Elpis reunion scene to be way more romantic than the solavellan ending. Solavellan is my OTP of all time but I can't help but feel like we were done dirty by Bioware with the crumb we did get.
The zoomed in eye contact with Hades/WOL at the Elpis lobby? When Neath Dark Waters plays again in the background?? DEEPLY ROMANTIC.
FFXIV SPOILERS
I was actually asked right before DA4 came out “which is more romantic, Solavellan or whatever Emet-Selch’s deal is” and I said “well, obviously Solas because there’s kissing” I think because I was hoping it would have a lot of stuff in DA4 so there WOULD be no comparison
but after everything, I actually change my answer. It’s weird to say, but kissing is so good, but there are so many more important things in fictional romance than kissing. Like good and complete and consistent character writing. Getting to know characters to their very core and in extreme situations. Like the amount of time the characters get to spend on the screen. Like truly deep and affecting subtlety that catches your breath and makes you want to scream and cry. Like the characters’ actions being loving and not just their words. Like everything coming full-circle. Like not switching protagonists 50% of the way through an unfinished love story, and getting to see the entire love story from one unbroken perspective the entire way through from beginning to end. Like, these are just a few of the important things that are different between the games.
I feel like DAI had all of these, especially the subtlety and the character consistency, but then DA4 came, gave them maybe 5 more minutes of content, and made everything extremely inconsistent. Meanwhile, Endwalker came out, gave you two hours more EmetWol content and elaborated the relationship SO much, revealed many more layers to it, kept things subtle and consistent, and allowed the characters to actually perform loving actions for each other, with very beautiful and subtly sadly romantic lines, and with the added helpfulness of Hythlodaeus making everything as explicit as you possibly could be in an MMO… so comparing DA4 to Endwalker is just almost laughable from a romance standpoint. I think that EmetWol has like… 2x the screen time over the entire story? It’s actually extremely nutty. I think it also helps that Emet-Selch has the kind of personality where he would absolutely refuse to be overly romantic on screen, so even if you had him in a BioWare game, his romance would be exactly the same as it would be in the MMO, so you feel like you aren’t missing anything. He’s just Like That. That’s his personality. He HAS to have a subtle romance.
I think it helps make Emet’s story feel more romantic because you can view Emet’s entire story AS a grand love story, whereas at the end of DA4 you’re like “ok so Solas was like not actually motivated by romantic love…? And if he was, it was really love to someone else entirely?” Like Emet is just more consistent, AND they were smart enough to make it feel like it was all just you and nobody else, baby. You are the ghost that haunts his past and present, and you don’t have to feel like you aren’t important. You’re it.