As you may have heard, there are two central villains in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and neither of them are Solas. His ritual in the prologue (and revealed in the trailer that coincided with the name change from Dreadwolf to The Veilguard), unleashes two new gods: Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain. Solas assists you in your hunt against them, and there are various twists in the tale to explore once more people have unravelled them. But for now, I want to talk about their designs.
Despite being presented as a duo, the pair have little in common visually. On the one hand, it’s good that they feel like two distinct characters. On the other, the difference is so vast that it’s odd to see them as inseparable halves as a duo. For the Brits: think of them as an Ant and Dec. For the Yanks: a Mac and Cheese.
Ghilan’nain And Elgar’nan Are Not A Good Match
Ghilan’nain is a gorgeous grotesquerie of tentacles, all blighted ooze and a slithering mass of squelching evil. Ever since she was revealed, fans have been begging others to ‘hear them out’. It’s a unique design with the potential to be iconic. And Elgar’nan is just a guy.
A big guy. Scary guy. Tall, imposing, stern looking. Oh, he’s a villain alright. But he’s a villain who is just a person like any other. His crown gives the appearance of horns, and he’s a far more physically powerful image than the slender, slightly washed out appearance of Solas. But with Ghilan’nain, it’s less Mac and Cheese and more Lightly Seared Octopus With Chilli Aioli, And Cheese.
Ghilan’nain Is Something New For Dragon Age
I don’t want to overthink this. We could draw conclusions from the fact a woman needs to offer a disgusting rejection of her physical beauty to be imposing, yet retain a literal mask of feminine grace to remain appealing, while the man just needs to show up, but we don’t need to. It’s just a funny quirk of what were likely repeated redesigns of these characters as the game shifted focus in development away from Solas.
Ghilan’nain was pushed further and further into a godlike spectacle, becoming something not of this world (or, indeed, Thedas’ world) and mimicking the grasping, ceaseless slither of the Blight itself. And Elgar’nan was just a big, kinda angry guy and the team all said ‘yeah that seems about right’. It goes along with their relatively thin motivations as characters.
Most gods we see in Dragon Age are more like Elgar’nan. This is not a complex pantheon, with nothing like the Ilxendren, the demon manta ray deity of Dungeons & Dragons, or indeed the various mythically shaped deities of our own civilisations. They’re mostly just people. Solas can turn into a wolf, Flemeth into a dragon, but in their regular form they’re just people. So much so that you don’t even realise Solas is anything other than a guy being a dude until the end of the game (and not even then – as playing Dragon Age: Inquisition on Game Pass proves).
Solas Should Have Been The Focus Of The Veilguard
In that sense, Elgar’nan is par for the course. It’s Ghilan’nain that offers something different. Through her oily, squelching tentacles, she sells the idea that The Veilguard is built around stopping ferociously evil, imperceptible gods of issues and struggles we cannot even comprehend. The story is grounded by Solas, the egghead we already know, and exploring his memories only humanises him further.
Narratively, this is a natural step for the game and makes you wonder why he’s not the focus anyway. But physically, it only underlines the humdrum normalcy of the elven gods, and Ghilan’nain reminds us we’re fighting forces we barely understand.
Unfortunately, the writing for each character is a little lacking. The title changed from Dreadwolf to The Veilguard, and playing it you can see why – Solas is put on the back burner, but the two gods don’t take his place. Instead, the various realms and how they endure the war-torn havoc of Thedas take centre stage. Plus, of course, how The Veilguard assists with this.
That means the two gods have to do a lot with limited screen time, and so visuals play a huge part. Ghilan’nain holds up her end of the bargain. But it seems like Elgar’nan didn’t get the memo.
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OpenCritic
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Top Critic Rating:
82/100
- Released
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October 31, 2024