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noverturemusings · 3 years

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The God, the Guide, and the Guardian

Click for better resolution, it got murked :’)

This thing took me almost a month good god. Anyway, been wanting to do a triptych for a while because how could I not with these three?

List of symbolisms under the cut because a lot of thought went into this piece. (spoilers for ITFOYL)

Solas and Dirthamen are facing Lavellan’s panel, but their eyes are hidden. Since Lavellan is meant to stand as a guide in this piece, it shows that they’re unable to fully see and follow his guidance. Solas is blinded by his duties as Fen’Harel (the wolf head) and Dirth is blinded by his duty to his family (the crown) and later, blinded by his grief (the funeral veil).

Since Lavellan is often referred to as Dirthamen’s raven, having a raven skull in Dirth’s hand symbolises his death at Dirth’s hand. Also, the key items the three are holding are in the same colour and haloed to show their connection to each other. Both the orb and the raven skull are omens of death, symbolising the hurt they’ve inflicted on Lavellan (his heart).

The raven skull is crying blood to mirror Lavellan crying gold in his panel, and also because it’s crying for Dirth since he wasn’t able to grieve properly. Also, it’s hella cool.

Speaking of crying, why is Lavellan crying gold? Well I was inspired by religious triptychs and the depictions of the Virgin Mary crying. Also, he’s got quite a few things to cry about, we’ll give him a pass pffhaha.

Lavellan has a halo to establish him as the guide, the light. The daggers pointed at him also shows how being worshipped is hurting him. (the entire thing looks sort of like a compass -- “compass of my heart” anyone?)

The fire design at the bottom of Lavellan’s robes is a nod to his trial. Also, Andraste’s death by fire.

Lavellan has no vallaslin. Mostly because I didn��t want the gold of his vallaslin to clash with the gold tears but let’s pretend I did it for symbolic purposes. Freedom! Huzzah!!

The stars! As some of u know I’m a sucker for celestial imagery and both Dirth and Solas have a star-related nickname for Lavellan. (The corvus and lupus constellations are also hidden in Lavellan’s cloak btw. They’re on the side respective of where Dirth and Solas are)

And to end on a happier note, there’s also the wisteria and dogwood that were present in the story! Both have a ton of symbolic meanings that are very varied, but I noticed that a meaning they had in common was love and renewal! Which I thought was pretty neat.

Yeah, there’s quite a bit. I may have overthought this.

#wisteria and dogwood are so pretty but they suck to draw #got lazy with the trees and background huhuhu i just smacked some textures on the bg and called it a day #dragon age #dragon age fanart #solavellan #m!solavellan #dirthavellan #dirthavellas #sad elf sandwich #solas #dirthamen #m!lavellan #mahanon lavellan #itfoyl lavellan #itfoyl art

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