The Gay Warden wrote...
There's no need to get out of hand, people. It's politics. In a VIDEO GAME.
Anyways, I still think Loghain would have made a better king than Cailon, had he been king already. Cailon was too cocky, too eager to become a hero... and if you've played RtO, you'd know why else he made an awful king. In my opinion at least.
A bit of... *ahem*,
excess bravado is common in young people. (Should have guessed the swear filter wouldn't have liked that.)
Plus, what Cailan
really seemed to have was confidence in his people in spades - including the Grey Wardens, and Loghain's ability as a general (at which point I
do feel the need to point out that being willing to admit that a subordinate is better in a given field is generally a good thing - this might
also be why Cailan was happy to leave most of the administration to Anora) - and the impression I got from Loghain was that while he didn't like Cailan be on the front lines, if he was trying to persuade Cailan the battle was unwinnable, he wasn't trying very hard. While I think Loghain would have preferred to spare Cailan, having the Wardens wiped out at Ostagar
definitely seemed to be part of his gameplan.
There may also have been some other considerations behind the bravado, as well. After Ostagar, it seems the next really defensible positions were Redcliffe, the Circle Tower and Denerim - Cailan's actions may have been driven by a desire to at least
try to stop the Blight before it spilled into Ferelden's heartlands (really, the "victory" you achieve is pretty pyrrhic when you consider the nature of the Blight and how much of Ferelden it must have covered by the end). Plus, while multple accounts list him as not being the sharpest tool in the shed, it's possible that he
had realised that Loghain might have "plans" for the Wardens and thought to protect them by his own presence. Unlikely, I know, but possible - especially if Loghain's suspicions weren't firm enough to be worth potentially alienating his best general over and he didn't believe Loghain would be willing to sacrifice him to kill the Wardens.
A Golden Dragon wrote...
P.S. I don't say that I condone Loghain's Actions. And had Loghain attacked as ordered, the next battle would have overwhelmed the Ferelden Forces at Ostagar, and Cailan wouldn't have retreated after several victories, would he?
Yes, Loghain committed Treason. Yes, he killed more of Ferelden's people than he did of the Darkspawn. Yes, he weakened the Grey Wardens to the point that it was concievably possible that they would fail, destroying Ferelden entirely, AND giving Orlais the Lands that originally were Ferelden.
But his actions did ensure that there was still a chance that Ferelden COULD be saved.
EDIT: THe survival of the Wardens was because of Flemeth. Loghain had actually planned TOO well, not to mention gotten a bit lucky, for the newest Wardens to escape....
He couldn't have planned for things to do as "well" as they did.
And it's possible, even likely, that the other things would have happened without Loghain's treachery. We collected the treaties
before the battle, after all - Duncan obviously planned for them to be invoked before the next big battle. With more Wardens to do their thing (and without Loghain having poisoned the Arl and set up the Circle to be broken) it's possible that we could have all four allies recruited in the time it takes to recruit
one in-game - and without having had their resources drained by their own problems first in the case of the Circle and Redcliffe's forces. And on top of that, the nation's resources wouldn't have been drained by civil war.
That's
more power - possibly two or three times over - than that which, in-game, lead to the Archdemon taking a personal hand in things - and in the meantime, Lothering and the Bannorn haven't been devastated by the Blight. And given the effect of Darkspawn on the local environment, that may require more time and effort to fix than simply rebuilding the settlements.
And if this hypothetical rematch didn't bring the Archdemon out, by the next, the Orlesian reinforcements would have started arriving - and in the meantime, the Legion of the Dead may well have been having themselves a field day in the pretty-much-cleared-out Dead Trenches. Of course, THIS allows for the possibility of the Orlesians not leaving when the Blight was defeated, but on the other hand, the "new management" may have preferred to learn from the past and not tried to pull a trick like that. (Plus, it would set a bad precedent for the next Blight, and no-one wants their neighbours to refuse assistance against a Blight because they're justifiably paranoid - better, after all, to fight the darkspawn while they're still in
someone else's territory.)
The Gay Warden wrote...
Well... I chose to keep Loghain alive.
Also, Loghain knew it was a Blight. Hence his sentence "We shall defeat even the Blight itself!"
It was Cailon who didn't think of it as a Blight, which gave Loghain--in his point of view--all the more reason to leave Cailon to die.
While I can't point you to the exact post, I believe there is Word of God that Loghain realised this was a real Blight
after Ostagar. Beforehand, the only ones that really believed it was the Wardens.
Xandurpein wrote...
The worst repercussions would may have been long-term though. It could very well mess up future successions. It would open up for the possibility of rulers of Orlais and Fereldan with rival claims on the other nations crown. It might well cement years of future war, rather than end it. For those who don't know it, rival claims on thrones based on intermarriage among other things was a major cause for the Hundred Years war between England and France.
On the other hand, look at the United Kingdom. Elizabeth pulled a shrewd move there (partially assisted by the opportunity afforded by genetics) by bringing both countries together largely as equals by making the kings of England and Scotland the same person, a union that's survived pretty much everything since and was probably pretty much unthinkable before she pulled it off.
Of course, this requires having the same person be the immediate heir to both thrones - the problem in the case of the Hundred Years Wars was that the claim to the throne by the English monarchy was fairly weak and indirect, and only really became an issue because the
other claimants to the throne were fairly weak. It probably also didin't help that the British throne inherited claims to the former Norman lands in France from William the Conqueror (although, technically, these claims were bundled with an expectation of fealty to the French crown).
Going back to the original topic: Cailan certainly wasn't a bad king. He had his shortcomings, but the most obvious we see (his overconfidence and possible naivety) is something he probably would have grown out of, and he has a very important virtue in a king - the willingness to admit that some of the people around him are more competant in some tasks than he is and thus to let them get on with it.
Modifié par draxynnus, 23 janvier 2010 - 11:49 .
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