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[DesstinyMaker]

I really enjoyed your posts, they are well reasoned and well argumented. Except for one basic fallacy: the question is not whether to 'save' or 'spare' Loghain. The question is whether you give in to the blackmail of a companion who has just proved himself an unreliable flake, and whether you are willing to stoop to murder in order to appease him.

Meta-gamingly you know that you can do whatever you want. You know that you can get away with murder if you so choose, and you know also that you don't need Alistair for anything (nor Loghain, for that matter).

In-role you don't know any of that, although you may be able to guess that an 'accidental' beheading of Loghain won't have any dire consequences for you and your team.

No, actually the question is whether or not you want Loghain to become a Grey Warden. At that point, you don't understand why Riordan is pushing for this so hard; you do, however, know that the man has tried to kill you repeatedly and there is no particular reason to believe that he won't do so again, at a very critical time with a lot at stake. If I were actually the Warden, knowing exactly what the Warden knows at that exact moment, my first reaction to Riordan's suggestion would be "Hell, no, there's a cell in Fort Drakon with this jerk's name on it, I'm not working with him."  It's beyond contrived that this is never made an option; in the real world, it is almost certainly the option any reasonable person would take. The idea that we must EITHER crown Alistair king because he flipped his lid or accept what appears to be a deadly enemy into our camp, to eat our food with us and sleep beside us in the next tent each night, is just... stupid.  And once again, if Riordan wants a Grey Warden, let's have a recruitment drive. I know a certain dwarf that will accept the cup willingly, and an elf I might just be able to intimidate into drinking the cup if he doesn't really understand what's in it. I'd rather have either of them - and there's still always Cauthrien. Or Teagen, for crying out loud. Or Perth. Or VAUGHN! Now there's a conscription I can really sink my teeth into! (Unless I'm I female elf.)

 

The other real question is whether or not you want to lose one Grey Warden in hopes of possibly recruiting another one if he survives the Joining.  That's not a risk I'd be willing to take, especially if, like Riordan, I know that a Warden must die to kill the Archdemon. I don't want it to be me! 

 

The real right answer to this dilemma, as far as I am concerned, is that Loghain should go to jail and stand trial, like any other political criminal.  Alistair gets whatever might be Ferelden punishment for being in contempt of court, and we decide all this stuff when tempers have died down.  The reason why this debate really rages is that there's no truly reasonable solution allowed by the writers of the game.

[Mike3207]

One of the Loghain reasons for trying to poison Eamon is that he wants to remove his support for Cailan's peace policies with Orlais. So he knows something is going on there, he just doesn't know how deep that well goes.

[DarthGizka]

@ DesstinyMaker

I like your thinking, and I agree. However, the game forces us to choose between killing Loghain on the spot and having him become a Grey Warden. If it were Howe then there would be no question: I'd rather decapitate him than letting that viper anywhere my team unshackled and unguarded, political ramifications be damned. In the case of Loghain things are less clear-cut. For one thing, at the bottom of his madness is his concern for the fate of Ferelden. So I can't see him stabbing the Warden in the back unless he saw a chance to get back in the driving seat, which seems quite out of the question under the circumstances.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

@ DesstinyMaker

I like your thinking, and I agree. However, the game forces us to choose between killing Loghain on the spot and having him become a Grey Warden. If it were Howe then there would be no question: I'd rather decapitate him than letting that viper anywhere my team unshackled and unguarded, political ramifications be damned.

I've played at least one character who would do such a thing.

[DesstinyMaker]

@ DesstinyMaker

I like your thinking, and I agree. However, the game forces us to choose between killing Loghain on the spot and having him become a Grey Warden. If it were Howe then there would be no question: I'd rather decapitate him than letting that viper anywhere my team unshackled and unguarded, political ramifications be damned. In the case of Loghain things are less clear-cut. For one thing, at the bottom of his madness is his concern for the fate of Ferelden. So I can't see him stabbing the Warden in the back unless he saw a chance to get back in the driving seat, which seems quite out of the question under the circumstances.

But at this point, the Warden does not know that Loghain is a better person than Howe is. Howe has done so many horrific things in Loghain's name, that Loghain has publicly signed off on, that somebody who hasn't really spent a lot of quality time with either of them has no reason to know that they aren't really friends and that Loghain isn't really the same kind of viper.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

He's already a warden and they are all throughout thedas. They would probably hunt him down.

Especially since they've already sent him to Orlais. I don't think that's going to kill him, since it would tick off everyone who actually got that result to not see any ramifications for their actions, but I'm fairly certain that the First Warden is trying to kill Loghain with that order. (And possibly the Warden-Commander, since this leaves exactly five Wardens under his command if you don't count Justice. Possibly fewer, since I think you can reject every companion.)

[DesstinyMaker]

I think that's the ultimate answer to the question. Experienced players will end up metagaming this - we all do it - and ultimately, we will end up choosing whichever man we like better and then create the rationalizations we need to argue that this is the "better" choice.

 

if we accept the endgame epilogues as gospel, the "best" choice for Ferelden is probably to marry Hardened Alistair off to Anora, so that they can bring their separate strengths together for the good of the country, and then recruit Loghain so that he can go out in a blaze of glory as he kills the Archdemon to save Ferelden. Alistair lives and thrives, Loghain gets his redemption and the honor due him in that respect, and the Warden gets to live without allowing the creation of a new demon. The single biggest reason why I only rarely do that is that I just enjoy the end of the game better chatting with Alistair rather than Loghain, and because Alistair's stats are better as we face the very tough endgame bosses.

 

The sticking point, of course, is figuring out how the Warden knows this is the best solution for the country. Only metagaming can tell us that. My Wardens tend to stick with a dear friend who is having a moment of insanity rather than a bitter enemy who has had a year of insanity, but not everybody considers Alistair a dear friend. If my very first Warden had not been a female Warden who romanced Alistair, I might see this differently.

[DesstinyMaker]

Respectfully, I think I am going to choose to disagree with you strenuously about Alistair's ultimate ability to rule. What I saw in the game was a guy who demonstrated pretty reasonable leadership talent in the Kocuri Wilds and the Tower of Ishal, who then had his confidence rocked to the core by the deaths of every person in his order. My "canon" Warden was an Aeducan, and she spent much of the game instructing him on leadership skills with the idea that he was eventually going to have to take the throne, so somebody had to get him ready for it. I also think that Eamon, as chancellor, would probably give Alistair instruction as well; Alistair may be his puppet, but he's also much younger than Eamon and Eamon doesn't know that Alistair is dead man walking because of the taint.

 

The real problem is that the "hardening" of Alistair is written really poorly. You are quite correct; a boy does not become a man because somebody tells him that everybody is out for themselves and he should realize that. In my headcanon, that moment is just the symbolic turning point of a long process that took place over the course of the entire journey. The writers have given us point A and point B, with the idea that moment X was the bridge that got him across, but clearly they left out several other points and several other moments that shaped his character. However, if they say he got to point B, I am not going to say it was impossible because they didn't show us. I am going to say it was very poor that they did not show us.  However, I accept that he got to point B. But then, for me, Dragon Age is Alistair's coming of age story.

[DarthGizka]

Equally respectfully, you must have played a different game. In mine, Alistair always displayed a distinct lack of anything resembling leadership skills - including the Korcari Wilds mission and the Ishal thing.

 

Most of his comments are noise, simply restating what is obvious to everyone:

 

"My Grey Warden sense is tingling. We're in danger again."

"More darkspawn. Close by. You know the drill."

"Let's cross the bridge and get to the Tower of Ishal!"

"Here we are: the Tower of Ishal. Let's get up to the top quickly so we can be ready for the signal."

 

Never mind that a leader would keep his enthusiastic but inexperienced padawans from committing silly mistakes like dying in a frontal assault on a fortified enemy position.

 

When some leadership might be indicated, Alistair restricts himself to silly jokes and plain emoting:

 

"Yes, swooping is bad."

"Here no longer?" You stole them, didn't you? You're... some kind of... sneaky... witch-thief!"

"I'd be careful. First it's, "I like you..." but then "Zap!" Frog time."

 

"Maker's breath! What are these darkspawn doing ahead of the rest of the horde? There wasn't supposed to be any resistance here!"

 

 And in the end he panics:

 

"The beacon is over here! We've surely missed the signal... let's light it quickly before it's too late!"

 

Never mind that he should have told someone else what the signal was supposed to be, in case he was wounded. Never mind that he doesn't stop to think whether it was even possible to have missed the signal, given the timing (Duncan having said "less than an hour" and the team reaching the beacon after three quarters of an hour typically).

 

In other words, the designers didn't even try to give Alistair more than redundant ambient comments. On the other hands, it jibes with Alistair never having been in combat with darkspawn except once.

 

P.S.: "I've only fought them once up close. And that was before the battles here started... which Duncan has kept me out of so far."

[DarthGizka]

I like the idea of figure-head Alistair adding a human touch to Anora's capable rule (or Cousland's, as the case may be).

[AlanC9]

I
 The sticking point, of course, is figuring out how the Warden knows this is the best solution for the country. Only metagaming can tell us that. My Wardens tend to stick with a dear friend who is having a moment of insanity rather than a bitter enemy who has had a year of insanity, but not everybody considers Alistair a dear friend. If my very first Warden had not been a female Warden who romanced Alistair, I might see this differently.

Our first Wardens do have an effect on us. Mine backed Alistair since Loghain came across to him as someone who richly deserved execution. Good thing too; Alistair wasn't hardened since the hardening line is way OOC for most of my Wardens. (IIRC Sheryl Chee once said that was an editing error; they had two hardening lines and cut the more generally-applicable one by mistake.) Not too happy when Riordan mentioned the whole Warden-dying thing, of course. And since my Warden thought that Anora was offering more of the same morally-bankrupt leadership, and the DR was the same arrogant recklessness that caused the Blights in the first place.... not a heck of a lot of choices left.

In later playthroughs, it's been a little hard to see those things in different lights. Emotionally, anyway. In practice I build Warden characters who will see things differently; can't avoid metagaming, so I use it to get different content.