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[ValentineHeart82]

Alocormin wrote...
If Loghain had allowed for reinforcements from Orlais, the battle would've turned out better. He wouldn't have been forced to decide between possibly destroying the whole army or letting his king die.

If Cailan had been willing to wait for Eamon's reinforcements the Orlaisian child murdering rapist wouldn't have even been needed. Redcliff had plenty of able bodied men, including knights and archers.

Alocormin wrote...
If you let him live and talk to him, you see that his concern about Orlais far outweighed reason of any sort. Strategically, his plan after Ostagar didn't make any sense - it was just desperation.

Is it really that unreasonable? The same child murdering rapist who hunted Fereldanites for sport were massing on his border, he didn't believe (at the time) that it was a true blight, just that there were far more Darkspawn than he expected and some of them (like the ogres) had never been seen before.

Alocormin wrote...
So I still see him as at fault, just not in the way the game constantly suggests. He was no longer doing the best for Ferelden in his sacrifices.

He believed that he was, and if he had been right about the Blight his actions would have been the right actions to take.

Onto the next poster I didn't see him as smiling, I suspect perspective colors how we see his facial expressions though. For instance, is he paranoid or does he see a threat that no one else sees? Is he psychotic or passionate? If you already have your mind made up it's going to effect what you see, just as BioWare intended.

[ValentineHeart82]

Koyasha wrote...

Do the conversation with Jowan again. He specifically says that the teyrn himself spoke with him. He recognized him from paintings he'd seen of Loghain.

He told me... Ah forget it, let's look at Jowan for a moment.

1: He's a blood mage.
2: You know he's a liar if you play the mage origin
3: It's quite possible that Howe would arrange for Jowan to implicate Loghein
4: Jowan told me something different as a mage, at least I'm pretty sure he did, I'm going to try again

[eschilde]

I would not say that he made a deal with them, no. He doesn't seem the type, nor does he seem foolish enough to try to negotiate with them, given their attitude (although the general idea that they are unintelligent is clearly proven wrong with the fact that they are capable of forging armor and weapons. (Tangent, but why would anyone think a species capable of the metallurgical knowledge needed to forge armor and weapons is mindless or animal-level is incomprehensible).

Okay, I agree with the forging thing, but I'm sticking to my point that there is no way to take a diplomatic route with the darkspawn. Also, it's mentioned somewhere that the darkspawn without an archdemon isn't as big a deal (well, to surfacers anyway, obviously it's a huge problem to the dwarves.) Since Loghain didn't think it was a Blight, and therefore no archdemon, I assume he assumed he could take care of it without too many issues.

I don't think he planned to lose at Ostagar at all. Being a brilliant strategist, I suspect his plan had some trick up it's sleeve, so he could charge in and save the day, after the Grey Wardens had all been defeated. He saw the Grey Wardens as a bigger threat than the darkspawn, I believe, primarily because they wanted to call in significant amounts of reinforcements from Orlais.

...I agree with that, but if he had won the battle at Ostagar maybe the Orlesian Wardens wouldn't have been needed. Isn't that more straightforward than considering Cailin collateral damage?

[Recidiva]

ValentineHeart82 wrote...

He told me... Ah forget it, let's look at Jowan for a moment.

1: He's a blood mage.
2: You know he's a liar if you play the mage origin
3: It's quite possible that Howe would arrange for Jowan to implicate Loghein
4: Jowan told me something different as a mage, at least I'm pretty sure he did, I'm going to try again

1.  Blood mages are human beings and he's basically a crappy blood mage who only "dabbled" and now just knows some stuff.  He only used it to protect Lily when desperate.
2.  You don't know he's a liar if you play the mage origin, you know he's in love and desperate to not be turned tranquil, which they would have done had he not escaped.  You never get the opportunity to say "Are you a blood mage, Jowan?" and he says "Why no, no I'm not."  Even Morrigan is entirely surprised to hear that Jowan is a blood mage.  He's just not a very good one and his heart isn't in it.
3.  Howe would do anything, true.  But in this case Loghain did it himself and was present.
4.  Jowan might conceal information, but he never outright lies about what he's done.  He confesses to being a poisoner practically before you can ask.  He says that Loghain specifically convinced him that Arl Eamon was a threat to the nation and that he thought he was doing something patriotic BECAUSE Loghain is a hero and why would he doubt Loghain?

[eschilde]

2. You don't know he's a liar if you play the mage origin, you know he's in love and desperate to not be turned tranquil, which they would have done had he not escaped. You never get the opportunity to say "Are you a blood mage, Jowan?" and he says "Why no, no I'm not." Even Morrigan is entirely surprised to hear that Jowan is a blood mage. He's just not a very good one and his heart isn't in it.

Wrong, you can ask him if the rumours are true, and he will say, 'What, no, of course not!' So he lies to your face.

[Recidiva]

eschilde wrote...

Wrong, you can ask him if the rumours are true, and he will say, 'What, no, of course not!' So he lies to your face.

Ah.  Okay.  I don't think that changes my mind.  I always think of Jowan as a mental defective who needs to be institutionalized for his own good, but the only choices are "tranquil" or "death"

The voice acting is just so incredibly wheedly and whiny while still managing to provoke that desperate "I neeed help!  Moooom!" tone that I associate with young children.  The actor sold it very well. 

Part of me was considering that maybe Jowan was ultimately the final bad guy!  Like the dude from Saw!   I spent a lot of time on that theory just because he was so pathetic it made me not suspect him of being able to capably tie his shoes alone.

My first playthrough was as a mage and the tower freaked me out entirely (still does) and five minutes in the place and I'd have been a full blood mage trying to bust out myself.  I was just sorry my own phylactery was gone.

[eschilde]

Yeeeah, Jowan was.. incredibly incompetent. He didn't have bad intentions, but he was incredibly selfish and had no regard for the position he was putting other people in, especially you as his friend and Lily as his girlfriend. Some people are really tunnel visioned like that; personally, it's something I hate to see in real life, but this guy was supposedly your friend in the Tower, and the only person to approach you after your Harrowing besides Cullen (well, if you're a female, no idea what he says if you're male.) The choices you get to progress in the storyline really suck.. sell out your friend or put yourself in an obviously questionable/illegal situation.



I need to replay that scene at Redcliffe, because I was fairly sure he told me Loghain set it up as well, both on mage and warrior.

[Mnemnosyne]

Okay, I agree with the forging thing, but I'm sticking to my point that
there is no way to take a diplomatic route with the darkspawn. Also,
it's mentioned somewhere that the darkspawn without an archdemon isn't
as big a deal (well, to surfacers anyway, obviously it's a huge problem
to the dwarves.) Since Loghain didn't think it was a Blight, and
therefore no archdemon, I assume he assumed he could take care of it
without too many issues.

Oh, I agree.  I think I forgot to make my point, I got carried away on the tangent.  Anyway, he didn't have to make an actual deal with them.  Somehow letting them know the the plan, or even simply leading them to the Tower in some way so they would attack it would have been enough to get them to attack it.

...I agree with that, but if he had won the battle at Ostagar maybe the
Orlesian Wardens wouldn't have been needed. Isn't that more
straightforward than considering Cailin collateral damage?

This is the part I have the most issues with, overall.  You're basically completely correct here.  The only reason for him to abandon Cailan if he thought that winning the battle would end the darkspawn threat would be to take over the throne, theoretically.  Unless he saw the Grey Wardens as an even greater long-term threat to Ferelden.  If he could defeat the darkspawn after the Grey Wardens had been defeated, and make them look like they betrayed the Fereldan forces, that would have two beneficial effects from his point of view.  First, Grey Wardens would no longer be considered needed to fight the darkspawn, since Loghain won without them, and second, they could outlaw Wardens in Ferelden again.

It seems shaky logic, but the only other reasonable possibility to me is that he thought the battle was unwinnable in the first place, and that doesn't make much sense, since he didn't object to the plan as a whole at the strategy meeting, and Duncan thought the plan would work to win the battle, even though he knew it would not end the Blight.  What other reason could he have for retreating as soon as he sees the beacon, without even seeing what the situation was down where Cailan is?

[ValentineHeart82]

Koyasha wrote...
Oh, I agree.  I think I forgot to make my point, I got carried away on the tangent.  Anyway, he didn't have to make an actual deal with them.  Somehow letting them know the the plan, or even simply leading them to the Tower in some way so they would attack it would have been enough to get them to attack it.

Isn't it more likely that the Arch-Demon would have sensed the plan because the Grey Wardens knew about it?

[Mnemnosyne]

Doesn't seem likely. Otherwise how would the Grey Wardens ever be involved in a plan without the darkspawn knowing about it too? The connection never seemed to convey any more than the vaguest of impressions of location and sense, certainly not details like the beacon will be lit to alert the flanking forces to attack.

[ValentineHeart82]

Koyasha wrote...

Doesn't seem likely. Otherwise how would the Grey Wardens ever be involved in a plan without the darkspawn knowing about it too? The connection never seemed to convey any more than the vaguest of impressions of location and sense, certainly not details like the beacon will be lit to alert the flanking forces to attack.

Maybe this Archdemon's different, I mean it did see you in your sleep. Maybe the joining tipped it off, maybe the Demon had some other way of knowing. To say that Loghein did it just seems far less likely than any other explaination. Maybe the Darkspawn didn't know the plan and they just decided to follow the Ogre in and ransack the tower *shrugs*.

For all you know the Archdemon could have been listening through one of you.

Modifié par ValentineHeart82, 01 décembre 2009 - 09:11 .

[Lianaar]

Or maybe Loghain just dug a big hole that lead from the wilds into the tower thinking that if the darkspawn stumble into it they'll find it interesting enough to go into.

Btw, there are intelligent darkspawn. Hurlocks can even talk (theoretically the only species of darkspawn capable of such).

The nightmares grey wardens have are linked to the darkspawn, but might be just nightmares and not actually SEEING what is happening. They are incoherent. It never gave me the feeling that the Arch Demon sees me. It was calling to the darkspawn, every one of them. My own dream showed it from a frontal perspective. Or why did the archdemon not notice and simply kill the party in the deeproads?

[Vormaerin]

I'd just like to refute the idea that Eamon has a claim to the throne in the slightest. He's not of any sort of royal blood. His sister married the King. That doesn't give him any rights whatsoever, especially if you assert that Anora doesn't have any rights as the King's widow.



Frankly, there is no heir to Maric that would stand up in court in any western european nation in the medieval era. Ferelden obviously isn't medieval European, so without a Dev explanation we are just guessing. But if this were England, somebody would have married Anora and started a new dynasty. Though its possible the Church could have been convinced that it was necessary to retroactively legitimize Alistair. But given his dubious relations with the Chantry, I think it more likely they wouldn't have done that.

[Mnemnosyne]

Remember the basis for Ferelden, though, while the monarchy is hereditary, it's also only at the pleasure of the Landsmeet. Therefore there aren't technically 'rules'. And the Chantry certainly is not involved at all, it's pretty clear that the Chantry is relatively divorced from politics, as long as the rulers pay respect to the Chantry - quite different from the situation in medieval europe.

The whole royal bloodline issue was primarily a traditional one. Calenhad's bloodline has ruled Ferelden since he united it, so Alistair had the respect of four hundred years of tradition behind him to sway the nobles at the Landsmeet.

Eamon's claim to the throne is because he's a popular man, essentially, and because the distant connection through his sister's marriage to Maric gives him about as much claim on the throne as Loghain being Anora's father gives him a claim.

[Spaceweed10]

@ the OP - I don't think you could have read the situations you mention, any more wrongly.

[SuperHappyFunGun]

I would really love to see a prequel involving playing Loghain's origin story. Fighting the Orlesians and allowing players to see why he was so paranoid about allowing them into his country would show him in a very different light.



Just as the main storyline allows the player to make some darker choices to eventually end the blight, Loghain faces his own decisions in preventing what he sees as an even greater evil than the darkspawn.

[Lianaar]

Vormaerin wrote...
Frankly, there is no heir to Maric that would stand up in court in any western european nation in the medieval era. Ferelden obviously isn't medieval European, so without a Dev explanation we are just guessing. But if this were England, somebody would have married Anora and started a new dynasty. Though its possible the Church could have been convinced that it was necessary to retroactively legitimize Alistair. But given his dubious relations with the Chantry, I think it more likely they wouldn't have done that.

That's true for strong dynasties where the ruler had power enough to repress or ignore nobility.
However there were quite a few countries, such as Germany or periodically Hungary, that indeed the nobility decided who will rule.
What you say is true, having someone marry Anora (someone of noble blood) is a strong applicant.
But anyone who is of noble blood and can claim any relation to Maric (be it through marriage) can have a good chance to convince the voting members of nobility to pick him.
In Germany it was basically just like the Landsmeet, there were voting counties, lands whose title ment that the holder of that title is needed to agree for a given person to be a king. That is why the ruler of Germany had a lot of politicing to do, to make sure that those nobles did indeed vote for him.
England didn't have that. England's king could simply proclaim: from now on we are not Christian. No continental state could have ever done that. 

I don't say that Eamon had more rights then Alistair or any other bastard (provided they could prove at all that the bastard was Marics, after all anyone could claim so...). Or the new husband of Anora. But he had a firm and good claim regardless.

[ValentineHeart82]

Lianaar wrote...

Or maybe Loghain just dug a big hole that lead from the wilds into the tower thinking that if the darkspawn stumble into it they'll find it interesting enough to go into.
Btw, there are intelligent darkspawn. Hurlocks can even talk (theoretically the only species of darkspawn capable of such).
The nightmares grey wardens have are linked to the darkspawn, but might be just nightmares and not actually SEEING what is happening. They are incoherent. It never gave me the feeling that the Arch Demon sees me. It was calling to the darkspawn, every one of them. My own dream showed it from a frontal perspective. Or why did the archdemon not notice and simply kill the party in the deeproads?

Maybe the Archdemon couldn't sense you in the Deeproads because there were so many Darkspawn, the taint is how it senses you and if it were surrounded by Darkspawns full of taint it may have made it impossible to zero in on you.

Anyway Grey Warden nightmares are definately more than just dreams. I mean you saw the exact same dragon in the exact same place you later stumbled upon it in the Deep Roads.

[Bhatair]

Yeah I'm with you there. Especially on the mage tower part. My first playthrough was with a mage so I pretty much just ignored the templars, plus he was as goodie two shoes as they come.

On my second playthrough I just... couldn't really find the logical reason the mages shouldn't at least be investigated.

[ValentineHeart82]

Spaceweed10 wrote...

@ the OP - I don't think you could have read the situations you mention, any more wrongly.

I think the way BioWare made it, there is no clear right or wrong. I think often what happens is you have an initial gut reaction, and you either stick with it or you don't. You aren't always shown that your gut reaction is wrong, but sometimes you are, and that casts everything into doubt. Also, there are a lot of signs that things may or may not be as they seem to your PC at the time.

On Loghein in particular Perspective colors a lot. If you decided he was the bad guy before what happened at Ostagar what are you more likely to see? A traitor coward or a military tactician who knows a lost battle when he sees one?

[Lianaar]

I didn't take it such literally. Everyone who knows about it says: you FEEL the arch demon. But how do you show that feeling in a computer game? There is no way to make the player FEEL something. Or do you want to have a voice in you saying: an entity of strained and concentrated darkness squirms in your mind filling your body with unease and an odd anticipation blablablabla...

Instead they use pictures.

The archdemon can call to the darkspawns, and there is a group mind. But then there are intelligent darkspawn with their own agenda. They are commanders, and generals (as stated in the codex). They can hear the arch demon's call, but who said the arch demon can feel, read or even sense the individual thoughts of the intelligent darkspawn or even Grey Wardens?



Grey Warden's don't understand the Archdemon, though Alistair says, some of them can, that is also a sign that their time to visit Orzamar came. If the Grey Warden's can not comprehend the Arch demon, why could the arch demon comprehend them? Why would the archdemon ever risk going near the Grey Wardens if it knew what they plan? Just send in 100 ogres and fly away. Wait a bit of time and send in he rest of the darkspawn. Once the wardens are dead the demon is free to act.

[Vormaerin]

Lianaar wrote...

I don't say that Eamon had more rights then Alistair or any other bastard (provided they could prove at all that the bastard was Marics, after all anyone could claim so...). Or the new husband of Anora. But he had a firm and good claim regardless.

He has a good and firm claim in the same sense that every Arl does and less of one than any of the Teryn have (since Teryns are super-Arls).    His sister's marriage doesn't strengthen his claim at all.

[Lianaar]

It certainly does. Just like being brother to the leader of the Ferelden Chantry would

It makes her claim stronger, though that alone wouldn't help. It is something that can tip the scale when politics come in play.

[tmp7704]

ReubenLiew wrote...

The way I see it, for every player that chose to tell the truth about Anora during their escape, is the classic example of the Paladin ; Virtue before logic.
Otherwise known as Lawful Stupid

My elf rogue had injury from the fight with Howe and it said: "Head concussion, penalty to Cunning".

With that in mind i just couldn't resist taking the stupid way to try and get myself alive out of that particular scenario

[Vormaerin]

Lianaar wrote...

It certainly does. Just like being brother to the leader of the Ferelden Chantry would
It makes her claim stronger, though that alone wouldn't help. It is something that can tip the scale when politics come in play.

If the Queen were alive or it otherwise gave him some allies in Court, then it would.   But that doesn't seem to be the case, does it?  The relationship doesn't create a legal basis for a claim of inheritance (which was a factor, though not the deciding one, in elected monarchies also).    And since she's long dead, it doesn't create any political allies he didn't already have.