Guest_Faerunner_*
Right, because he believes he did what was best for Ferelden. He does admit, near the end of the game if you've recruited him, that he was wrong about you and that his plan wasn't the best idea and that yours has merit. But at the Landsmeet and when you first recruit him, he still believes his actions are just.
That doesn't make it okay.
Besides, underneath it all I don't think he really believes what he's doing is best for Ferelden. He constantly has to lie and bullshit to himself that what he's doing is "best for Ferelden," but when pushed on it he constantly has to fall back on excuses, rationalizations, self-deceptions, and blame-shifting. When Anora calls him out on his desertion at Ostagar, "Did you kill Cailan?" He weakly and evasively mutters, "Cailan's death was his own doing," but he can't look her in the eye when he says it. While he's suspicious of the Wardens from the very beginning and scapegoats them for his desertion immediately after Ostagar, by the Landsmeet he's convinced himself of his own lies. He exclaims, "You goaded him into making that charge!" despite how the player who was at Ostagar saw that Duncan was just as unsure of the plan as Loghain was, and also tried to talk him out of charging, albeit less aggressively.
One running theme in the game is the dangers of Pride and self-deception; convincing yourself that you are more capable than you are or deserve more than you really do. We see it with starter villains like Bann Vaughan and Beraht; smug snakes who feel so confident that they have everything under control that they taunt the player even when held at bladepoint with weapons slippery with their guards' blood. We see it with Cailan; his pride and vanity in thinking he can easily defeat the Blight gets him killed by it. We see this with Uldred; his pride caused him to summon and merge with a Pride demon. We see this with Howe; he believes that he "deserve[s] more," which leads to him usurping Highever and the Arldom of Denerim.
Loghain is no exception. As Flemeth notes early in the game, "Men's hearts hold shadows darker than any tainted creature. Perhaps he believes the darkspawn army is an enemy he can outmaneuver." Indeed, Loghain spends most of the game insisting that it's not a true Blight, that Ferelden don't need the Grey Wardens to fight darkspawn, and later asserts, "Stand with me, and we shall defeat even the Blight itself!" He spends the whole game insisting that the Grey Wardens are secretly Orlesian spies, that Ferelden "can stand on its own two feet," and insists that the entire country must unite under his banner in order to defeat the darkspawn. He simultaneously undermines the darkspawn as not too great a threat for him to handle, but a great enough threat that only he can defeat. As a hardened Alistair notes of Anora and Loghain, "They think they alone know what's best for Ferelden, and everyone else needs to just get out of the way."
I could almost understand him feeling that way during the very beginning, but the problem is he stubbornly holds onto that view even when shown the contrary later in the game. Even when proven wrong time and time again, he keeps insisting that he is right and everyone has to listen to him and do things only his way. He keeps insisting "the nobles need to be brought to line, and then the darkspawn," even when the nobles don't immediately fall into line and the whole country is being swallowed alive by darkspawn because the nobility are too busy fighting each other for too long to deal with them. He keeps insisting the Grey Wardens are wrong and darkspawn are "no true Blight," even when the Grey Wardens are proven right and the whole country is getting ravished by them. Even when proven that he's wrong about the Bight and has a terrible year-long track record of dealing with them, Loghain still insists that he alone can lead the country safely against the Blight.
In fact, could I just take this moment to say that for all Loghain telling Cailan, "Your fascination with glory and legends will be your undoing... We must attend to reality," he himself ignores the reality that doesn't match his preconceptions (darkspawn not being a Blight, nobles not quickly or easily falling behind him, himself not being the only one who can stop the Blight, etc) in favor of believing the stuff that strokes his own ego and convinces him that he alone knows what's best for Ferelden and he alone can fix the current crisis. Even as everything falls around him because of his decisions.
I don't buy that Loghain sold the elves because he really believed it was necessary for Ferelden; I think there's a layer deeper than that. I think he only convinced himself it was needed for Ferelden to feed his pride and stubbornness. He'd dug himself into a trench over the course of the game where the only way to get out would be to admit he had been wrong about the darkspawn and his perceived importance in defeating them, or just keep sacrificing more people (soldiers fighting three fronts--the nobles, darkspawn, and Orlesian border) to keep taking the fall for him. Ending the civil war would require humbling himself and admitting he was wrong about the darkspawn and about the regency being... but he'd rather not do that. He'd rather keep convincing himself "This is the only way to help Ferelden; I alone can save this country by having absolute authority as general and regent" and then sell the elves into slavery to get the gold to fund the civil war to fight the nobles to try to force them to fall behind him to maintain his own regency.
THAT'S why I can't forgive Loghain for selling the elves into slavery. Not just because of the hypocrisy and racist double-standard (although that does play a huge part of it), but because he sold them to feed his own stubbornness and pride. He was too stubborn and too proud to admit, even to himself, that he was wrong or not as necessary to defeating the darkspawn as he painted himself as early after Ostagar.
And the fact that he chose to believe his own lies and bullshit doesn't make it okay with me. Lying to oneself is just as bad as lying to others in my opinion, only it's more dangerous because of all the issues Loghain invokes in this game.
In DAI, Loghain states that none of the Wardens accept him as one of their own. And while he's remembered as a hero if he dies slaying the archdemon, it's because he made the final blow, thus saving everyone, not specifically due to Grey Warden status. We don't get any indication of what people generally think of him in DAI except that the Requisitions Officer in Haven formerly served with him and feels his talents are wasted as a Warden. The Requisitions Officer at Skyhold says that he was assigned as her replacement because her views were unpopular. So it doesn't seem that Loghain is regarded very highly.
Which wouldn't have been physically possible if he hadn't joined the Wardens, so my point still stands.
As I've said previously, I feel like death is too easy. I'd rather Loghain realize his mistake and live his life striving to make up for it. I feel like that is the more worthwhile punished, and the one that is potentially worse because he personally knows he can never fulfill that goal.
Which, from where I'm standing, is more of a mercy since you are giving him a chance to try to clear his conscience and his name.
To me, a much crueler fate is to say, "No, you don't GET to try to ease your conscience or clear your name. You don't GET to try to make up for your crimes. You don't deserve it. You get to die publicly condemned and rejected for your crimes, hated and forgotten, with no hope of ever, ever, ever getting even the chance of rising above where you are now."
As far as what sets a better example - better example to who exactly? And how is this example we're setting accomplishing anything? I don't think there are many nobles out there thinking they'd like to take over the throne and who would see Loghain's execution as a deterrent. If anything, they probably realize it's not a good idea to tick off the Grey Wardens, but I doubt that would stop them from going after their goals - they'd just know who to steer clear from while they did so.
Loghain doesn't JUST take over the throne though. He also commits many crimes beyond it, such as treason (which involves more than just regicide), desertion, kidnapping, torture, war crimes, slave-trading, etc. The Landsmeet is as much about trying him for his crimes and applying the appropriate punishment if he's found guilty. One noble commits a number of crimes, gets tried and found guilty, but then gets to dodge customary execution and get the chance to redeem himself instead; what does that tell the others? If they decide to try any funny business in the future, maybe they could probably also get lucky and dodge execution, get to try to redeem themselves, etc.
Besides, like I said, being a City Elf Warden (which this thread is about) could also influence onlooking nobles that ****** with the elves, getting tried for ****** with the elves, then getting found guilty and executed by said elf who rose to power, could probably instill some subconscious hesitation. In the DAA epilogue, if an Elven Warden lets Amaranthine burn, rumors will circulate afterwards that this was an act of revenge for the way humans treat elves. So I don't think it's quite so farfetched that an elf--in this case, a city elf from Denerim who used to scrub human floors and has now risen in power in human estimation--who publicly tried and executed the Teyrn of Gwaren and Regent of Ferelden (especially after calling him out on enslaving fellow city elves) would cause at least some nobles to connect the dots and at least think twice before they try to pull any stunts like that with their elven employees in the future.
At least moreso than, "Your crimes are unforgivable--but I'm going to let you try to redeem yourself instead."
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