505 réponses à ce sujet

[Yaroub]

Duncan is awesome, that's the only reason you need.

 

Duncan approves +100!

 

 

Well Duncan is also quite dead.

 

He is not dead, he just vanished.

[Aren]

Duncan totally would've conscripted Loghain, though.

And so have i,i respected Duncan memories more than Alistair.

At the end his life go away in the possible best way,to kill that annoying killing dragon machine and redeem him,in the heaven he will be sorry for his misdeeds but also proud to have helped the world.

Edit

No pain Loghian

[Aren]

Seriously, Alistair, abandoning your loved one just before the final battle and let her sacrifice (ok, there are other ways but he doesn't 

 

He should react "ok yes conscript him and make him sacrifice against the archdemon, like this everyone's happy, good riddance". But no, he leaves you anyway. He is the most selfish of all.

 

 

You have resumed perfectly of why both AListair and Morrigan are on the bottom when it comes to my favourite characters.

The breaking point for my warden:

first AListair,and then Morrigan only because i was trying to do what Duncan and Cailan and Riordan and the whole world expected from me, being a guardian and do everything in the best interest of Thedas..

Spare Loghain was useful but also an act of mercy and this act was rewarded with desertion.

DO everything in the best interest of the established order,and risk with the AD,was rewarded with another abandon from Morrigan parts

Only at the end my warden understand on how few,only few can bear such a sadness and yet succeeded,he was one of them.

I saw AListair in DAII and Morrigan reaction in WH after these events,but honestly i don't care about them anymore,the will live their life full knowing that they have abandoned the HoF in his moment of needing,despite what the same Hero has done for them.

Also for my point view AListair didn't betrayed the Hero but the GW,i was not his superior just a warden like him.

[Tamalain]

Alistair doesn't always think rationally. He is still reeling from the death of Duncan and Cailen which a lot of people have already commented on. He is not a politician and to be honest, would you want him ruling a kingdom on his own. I have played most endings and the last one I finally spared Loghain because I never thought about it before. But I can see Loghain's point about Ostagar being a lost cause. He made a series of bad decisions thanks to Howe but I honestly think Loghain thought he was making the right choice for Ferelden. He also makes a great Gray Warden and I like seeing him back in subsequent games. He adds another element given his history. My now preferred ending is: Hardened Alistair on the thrown with Anora and Gray Warden Loghain. I don't feel that bad about it since Alistair throws my pretty Mage Warden under the bus at the end. Wow, I get to be a mistress? Really? Should've gone with Cullen.  

[sylvanaerie]

Well, in the mind of people, Cailan is the King who was brave and has been betrayed by his traitor-general, and Duncan (for Alistair for example) is a hero who died with honor.

No one seem to blame them for anything. Except Loghain.

 

I think that for the people of Ferelden, Loghain lost his honor at Ostagar, not because of the things he did after. When the characters in the game blame him for something or insult him, it's 90% about the retreat at Ostagar.

 

It depends on the person.  With Alistair, it's all about Ostagar.  It was personal, he was one of the ones abandoned to die there, and certainly all his friends in the wardens and Duncan died.  For Eamon and Teagan, probably the poisoning of Eamon is a paramount issue, but Cailan (their nephew's) death is also part of their grievance with him.  For city elves, its about the slavery issue.  For Bann Sighard it's about his son and his crippled legs.  Arl Wulff wants to know why they are still squabbling over the imagined threat of Orlais instead of dealing with the very real threat that killed his sons and is overrunning their nation. Bann Alfstanna is most upset by her brother's detention in Howe's little funhouse of torture. The "gossips" you overhear have a lot to say about Loghain's activities after Ostagar if you listen to some of their ambient dialogues.

 

Tragedy is more powerful when it's personal. 

 

And as I said earlier.  Cailan and the wardens are dead.  It's kind of hard to focus any anger on them because they paid for their mistakes already with their lives.  Cailan regardless of being an idiot, had a lot of warmth and personal charisma like his dad, something Loghain is severely lacking in.  And none of the rank and file of NPCs knows Duncan from Adam, so I don't expect any blame to fall his way outside of the slanderous rumors no one believes about the wardens.  Seriously did Loghain really believe he was going to get anyone to swallow his 'they were working with the darkspawn' hogwash?  As outlandish as his "Orlesian agents" claim was, it was at least more believable than that whopper.  Every appearance of the wardens I've seen has them doggedly devoted to the whole "Kill darkspawn and stop the Blight" mentality.  Loghain walked away from that fight unscathed and those who lost brothers, sisters, fathers, husbands, children and wives down there want answers he isn't forthcoming with.  

 

*Edit* AND the original plan for Ostagar that so epically fails was Loghain's in the first place.  I would imagine to those outside the experience that this man hatched a plot to kill the king, blame his death on the wardens and steal his throne (all things he does in game if you just look at the surface of what happens).  His motives are much deeper and there's more to the story than that, but that's what someone who doesn't have a screenplay privy to private conversations looking at the events would see.

 

For me, personally the player, it's about the slavery.  One playthrough i actually had in mind to spare him, but I got so angry at the point I reached the alienage part of the game I was ready to kill him again.  Seriously, it's the deal breaker for me. All his protestations about Orlesian enslaving of Fereldens make him seem like a hypocrit.  Some animals are more equal than others it would seem.

[Vanalia]

Alistair doesn't always think rationally. He is still reeling from the death of Duncan and Cailen which a lot of people have already commented on. He is not a politician and to be honest, would you want him ruling a kingdom on his own. I have played most endings and the last one I finally spared Loghain because I never thought about it before. But I can see Loghain's point about Ostagar being a lost cause. He made a series of bad decisions thanks to Howe but I honestly think Loghain thought he was making the right choice for Ferelden. He also makes a great Gray Warden and I like seeing him back in subsequent games. He adds another element given his history. My now preferred ending is: Hardened Alistair on the thrown with Anora and Gray Warden Loghain. I don't feel that bad about it since Alistair throws my pretty Mage Warden under the bus at the end. Wow, I get to be a mistress? Really? Should've gone with Cullen.  

I totally agree on this  (Cullen is he best choice!)

 

@Sylvanaerie: I have to play again to the game to really have all the details clearly in mind. I think however that after the retreat at Ostagar, even if Loghain would have acted in a neutral way, the crowd would still see him as a traitor. Even without the poisonning, even without the slavery, after Ostagar his reputation was destroyed and it would have been impossible to be trusted again by the people and by the nobles.

 

Loghain is not a popular leader like Maric was (but Loghain seems to be liked by his soldiers, some of them almost worshiped him even afer Ostagar) because he doesn't care about looking warm/kind, he just wants to be effective and lacks diplomacy. So the nobles would have hated him anyway, they didn't really like him to start with. He didn't care about "being liked", that's what you can see in the books as well. He is no King material and he knows it.

[Dai Grepher]

Even if, when you think of it, it's more Cailan who killed Duncan, because he insisted on fighting a battle already lost just because he wanted to "play to war" and have the same reputation as his father. It is impossible to say that if Loghain had stayed, the army and Cailan would have survived. They certainly would have all died anyway.

Even if physically it's the ogre who killed Duncan, of course 

 

Actually, Duncan killed the Ogre that killed Cailan. Duncan was killed by a Hurlock Vanguard with a great axe to the face.

 

Also, the entire battle strategy was Loghain's. So it was Loghain who got them all killed.

[Mike3207]

I'd like to know what evidence there is for the claim that the battle strategy was Loghain's. As far as I can tell, the whole thing was Cailan's idea. He pretty much run roughshod over anything Loghain tried to contribute on how the battle was planned or fought, so any issues over that fall squarely on Cailan.

[sylvanaerie]

I'd like to know what evidence there is for the claim that the battle strategy was Loghain's. As far as I can tell, the whole thing was Cailan's idea. He pretty much run roughshod over anything Loghain tried to contribute on how the battle was planned or fought, so any issues over that fall squarely on Cailan.

 

Loghain was the general, the military strategist that even Alistair admits has been the only reason they've been winning the previous battles.

 

Did you miss the part where Cailan is asking Loghain to explain the plan again?  At the meeting with Duncan, the PC and the general right before everyone goes out.  It wasn't his idea but he's the first to bollocks the plan.  Your Majesty Gloryhound ignored the plan to use Ostagar's walls to prevent the darkspawn from flanking them by sending his troops out to engage, so at that point Loghain's plan was pretty much tossed into the crapper.  But it was still Loghain's plan to have the King's troops draw them out and Loghain's troops to flank the enemy, making for a much more decisive battle on paper than was in actual execution.

 

Because none of them (except maybe Duncan and the wardens?) expected the numbers that actually turned up.

 

I don't blame Loghain for the plan itself failing, I blame him for not getting enough intelligence on the enemy.  The scouts had the info but no one was paying attention to them.

[Dai Grepher]

The plan was to draw the darkspawn into charging the main lines, then signal the tower, which would then signal Loghain's forces to flank. Cailan ordering the charge was part of the plan, as that was the draw that would get the darkspawn to charge.

 

The problem is that Ishal was not secure, and Loghain knew it. He had his men investigating the tower prior to the battle. He knew about the lower chambers and that darkspawn could get in through there and overrun the position. His plan was for the beacon to never be lit, thus giving him the perfect cover story as to why he did not charge in as he should have.

[sylvanaerie]

The plan was to draw the darkspawn into charging the main lines, then signal the tower, which would then signal Loghain's forces to flank. Cailan ordering the charge was part of the plan, as that was the draw that would get the darkspawn to charge.

 

The problem is that Ishal was not secure, and Loghain knew it. He had his men investigating the tower prior to the battle. He knew about the lower chambers and that darkspawn could get in through there and overrun the position. His plan was for the beacon to never be lit, thus giving him the perfect cover story as to why he did not charge in as he should have.

I don't recall finding anything like this in game.  It wasn't secure, but I figured Loghain didn't know about the darkspawn infiltration.  But admittedly it's been a couple years since I've played and my exploration of the events was so much less once I did it 4 or 5 times.  I always thought his mistake was not getting accurate information on the darkspawn in the first place, something the wounded scouts confirm if you chat them up.  

 

And i always interpreted them as using Ostagar's walls to maximize the bottleneck of the enemy.  If Cailan was indeed following the plan as it had been described to him, Loghain's plan was even more epic fail than I initially thought.

 

These things make him seem far more insidious than I blamed him for, and makes it seem like he planned Cailan's death all along (which Gaider has said in posts on the BSN that was not his intent).

[Illegitimus]

I'd like to know what evidence there is for the claim that the battle strategy was Loghain's. As far as I can tell, the whole thing was Cailan's idea. He pretty much run roughshod over anything Loghain tried to contribute on how the battle was planned or fought, so any issues over that fall squarely on Cailan.

Nope.  It was Loghain's plan all right.  Cailan actually had Loghain explain the plan to him again just to make sure he understood it.  Cailan only insisted on being stationed beside the Wardens which was reckless considering that the Wardens were the bait.  

[Vanalia]

Maybe it was Loghain's plan, but it was Cailan's idea to fight that battle. Cailan ordered Loghain to find a plan to fight that battle and Loghain had to obey, even if the best thing to do was NOT fighting there, but regroup elsewhere, or wait, or whatever.

 

I guess it's hard to make a good plan if all the odds are against you.

 

 

Just like when, in Star wars books, the Emperor ordered Grand Admiral Thrawn to lead his forces into a battle Thrawn thought lost in advance. He could have obeyed and tried to make a plan, but even with a good one, it would have been a lost cause. So he had the guts to say "no" to the Emperor, that this battle couldn't be won, and the Emperor was so angry he gave the forces to another Admiral, who obeyed the Emperor, and who lost all his men in that foolish battle. After that disaster, the Emperor recognized that Thrawn was right to refuse in the first place...

 

Well, Loghain could not or did not say "no" to his King for that battle lost in advance. Cailan wanted glory, he wanted an epic battle. It doesn't mean that Loghain's plan was crap, he is well known for being a wonderful tactician (in the books as well), it's just that some battles cannot be won. Even with a good plan. And especially if te enemy forces are 10 times more important than what you expected.

[sylvanaerie]

Maybe it was Loghain's plan, but it was Cailan's idea to fight that battle. Cailan ordered Loghain to find a plan to fight that battle and Loghain had to obey, even if the best thing to do was NOT fighting there, but regroup elsewhere, or wait, or whatever.

 

I guess it's hard to make a good plan if all the odds are against you.

 

 

Just like when, in Star wars books, the Emperor ordered Grand Admiral Thrawn to lead his forces into a battle Thrawn thought lost in advance. He could have obeyed and tried to make a plan, but even with a good one, it would have been a lost cause. So he had the guts to say "no" to the Emperor, that this battle couldn't be won, and the Emperor was so angry he gave the forces to another Admiral, who obeyed the Emperor, and who lost all his men in that foolish battle. After that disaster, the Emperor recognized that Thrawn was right to refuse in the first place...

 

Well, Loghain could not or did not say "no" to his King for that battle lost in advance. Cailan wanted glory, he wanted an epic battle. It doesn't mean that Loghain's plan was crap, he is well known for being a wonderful tactician (in the books as well), it's just that some battles cannot be won. Even with a good plan. And especially if te enemy forces are 10 times more important than what you expected.

 

This is why I think the blame should be shouldered by more than one person.  Cailan wanted to get reinforcements of wardens and troops from Orlais, which Loghain vetoed.  He had no qualms about saying "no" then.  Loghain didn't think the darkspawn were as numerous as they turned out to be, so he figured with the troops they had the plan had a chance of success, if it went off correctly, which for multiple reasons it didn't.  And he had an unreasonable dread of the Orlesians coming into Ferelden, understandable but still unreasoning.

 

Now folks like to say "this battle was lost already", but it's not definitive.  Devs won't commit to one way or the other (and in Inquisition Solas has an unusual take on the situation).  I won't debate that one.  We won't ever know what would have happened one way or the other, just player speculation.  I'm willing to accept either side of that debate depending on how my day is going, and one reason I give Loghain the benefit of the doubt there.

 

Following in the same vein, people also argue "The signal was late".  IF the battle was already lost before they entered into it, signal on time wouldn't have made a hill of beans worth of difference there.  The plan was doomed from the start, late signal or not.  But hell, I'm feeling generous, some of the blame can be shouldered on the PC warden's back there. Unfortunately, this also opens Loghain up to a bit more criticism even as it exhonerates him somewhat.  If Loghain couldn't see the battlefield, (the reason the signal was used) how would he even know what was happening down there?  Signal happens, he should have gone in, according to the plan.  But he just walks away.  It's not like he had a watch on and could tell time.  Alistair says "It's late" but he doesn't have a watch either.  We aren't given a time frame to get it done in.  And time without some means of measurement is a subjective thing.  Either of them could have been off, making the signal iffy at best to begin with. 

 

Cailan being on the front lines was all Cailan's doing.  Loghain tried to talk him out of it, but either didn't try hard enough or realized the futility of trying to convince the gloryhound and gave up.  You can see it on his face at that moment he decides he's gonna cut Cailan loose if necessary.  No, I don't believe he planned it ahead of time, but it was certainly in his mind when it was happening.

 

I don't know if Duncan knew the numbers they faced were as bad as they were.  Not sure how refined an old warden's warden-sense is.  Was probably just pinging off the charts with the amount they had AND an archdemon out there singing them all.  Certainly, he could have been more vocal at that council, he was the darkspawn expert and Loghain and Cailan looked to him to provide some intelligence on the enemy.  Explaining in simple terms why he knew it was a blight would have at least gotten Loghain and Cailan to take it more seriously.  Maybe.  Depends on how much they would believe him.

 

I dunno, it seems as if Ostagar is just a disaster of epic proportions.  To me, the real story doesn't get started till after that.

[Mike3207]

Here's my thinking on it-Loghain's original plan was probably to stay in the fortifications, but you have Cailan's man saying "he'll do what the King wants, in the end."

I think that's probably true. Cailan argued for a few weeks about coming out of the fortifications, and Loghain gave in to it in the end. If I remember correctly, he calls it our plan.

 

The problem is, both plans were doomed. You have darkspawn coming out of the forest to attack the forces on the battlefield, and darkspawn forces attacking through tunnels in the Tower of Ishal. Tactical and strategic surprise for the forces in the Tower of Ishal, and tactical surprise for the forces on the battlefield. The darkspawn were implementing a pincer attack to crush the Ferelden armed forces between both darkspawn forces, and for all intents and purposes, it worked. The only succesful plan for the Fereldans would have been to retreat-either before the battle or when Loghain did so.

 

it's feasible the Wardens could have destroyed the darkspawn coming in through the tower of Ishal if they had been aware of it and their whole force moved in, but there wasn't a lot of trust between them and Loghain. I hate to think of it, but it might have been a secondary plan to send the Wardens in to ishal to be destroyed. i suspect he thought there had been some darkspawn infiltration, but likely he way underestimated the size of the infiltration.

 

Finally, it likely would not have gone well if Loghain had gone to Cailan and looked to retreat before the battle. Cailan would have refused and maybe even sidelined Loghain's force before the battle. All this adds up to Loghain retreating when he did likely saved the Fereldan army, and allowed it to survive until, the Battle of Denerim, where it got its revenge back on the darkspawn.

[Xetykins]

At the end of the day, these arguments are are full of "maybes" and that's all there is to it really.

That's why I'd rather see the whole thing that was presented and portrayed and shown to me as it is. Maybes are for head canons. I have a lot of those.

[Darkly Tranquil]

The why's and wherefore of Ostagar have been argued to death. We just don't know what took place with sufficient clarity to make a judgment on who was at fault.

We also need to keep in mind that at one stage during development, Loghain was going to have been indoctrinated by the Archdaemon, and I can't help thinking some aspects of what took place at Ostagar still carry some residue of that idea.

[Vanalia]

I'm happy they didn't make him indoctrinated by the Archdemon... he was supposed to be like a good guy whose mind had been "possessed/manipulated" by the Archdemon, and who would one day "wake up" and realize it? or just some bad guy who decided to work with the Archdemon? that would be the worst.

[Illegitimus]

Maybe it was Loghain's plan, but it was Cailan's idea to fight that battle. Cailan ordered Loghain to find a plan to fight that battle and Loghain had to obey, even if the best thing to do was NOT fighting there, but regroup elsewhere, or wait, or whatever.

 

 

Regrouping elsewhere would have been a bad idea I think.  The territory south of Redcliffe is fairly flat and lacking in fortifications.  Holding them at Ostagar seems like the best choice.  Taking the field against them is not necessarily the best idea, but only because the archdemon hadn't in fact risen.  If it had, then the Wardens would have been able to lure it and kill it in the field, whereas if they'd been holed up the archdemon would have demolished the place.  

[sylvanaerie]

I'm happy they didn't make him indoctrinated by the Archdemon... he was supposed to be like a good guy whose mind had been "possessed/manipulated" by the Archdemon, and who would one day "wake up" and realize it? or just some bad guy who decided to work with the Archdemon? that would be the worst.

 

I don't know what their ultimate plan was with Indoctrinated Loghain.  I've heard about it, but frankly I like what they went with better.  Loghain as he is, is a very controversial character.  Even if you hate him (as I do) you can still appreciate the complexity of writing that went into creating his personality as it is.  "There but by the grace of God go I" fits him very well.  He's someone I can relate to because of it.  He's human.  He makes mistakes.  In his fear of Orleasians, he becomes what he hates most about them.

 

Brainwashed/Indoctrinated Loghain would have taken the whole moral quandary out of the player's hands.  How can you condemn someone who was under someone else's control the entire time?  And someone who knew it was a bad idea and still worked with the darkspawn, that would make him worse than Howe.  

[Vanalia]

Yes I prefer the way he is now. 

 

I would not understand why someone would willingly work hand in hand with the darkspawn, anyway. 

[Mike3207]

The Qunari merchant in Awakening makes a deal with the darkspawn for his own survival and protection from being blighted. It's definitely an option for your warden to bring the merchant back to your fort. Does that mean your Warden is compromised for doing so-not touching that one.

[Darkly Tranquil]

The Qunari merchant in Awakening makes a deal with the darkspawn for his own survival and protection from being blighted. It's definitely an option for your warden to bring the merchant back to your fort. Does that mean your Warden is compromised for doing so-not touching that one.

Slightly different case. The Architect can be reasoned with, the Archdaemon not so much.

[Dai Grepher]

I don't recall finding anything like this in game.  It wasn't secure, but I figured Loghain didn't know about the darkspawn infiltration.  But admittedly it's been a couple years since I've played and my exploration of the events was so much less once I did it 4 or 5 times.  I always thought his mistake was not getting accurate information on the darkspawn in the first place, something the wounded scouts confirm if you chat them up.  

 

And i always interpreted them as using Ostagar's walls to maximize the bottleneck of the enemy.  If Cailan was indeed following the plan as it had been described to him, Loghain's plan was even more epic fail than I initially thought.

 

These things make him seem far more insidious than I blamed him for, and makes it seem like he planned Cailan's death all along (which Gaider has said in posts on the BSN that was not his intent).

 

You have to talk to the Tower Guard where you first enter Ostagar and ask him about the tower. He'll confirm that Loghain's men are searching it, and he mentions the lower chambers.

 

Maybe not. I stand by the idea that Cailan charging is what drew the darkspawn into a charge, and that was what Cailan would have been waiting for to send the signal for Loghain to charge. But the plan was never designed to win the battle, it was designed to throw it.

 

David Gaider is trumped by the canon. He can make up whatever fanfiction he wants after the fact, but that doesn't change what the game states. That said, it is possible that Gaider could be correct. Loghain did indeed try to persuade Cailan to stay out of the battle. But maybe he had something else planned for him instead in that case, or maybe he would have been able to use Cailan as a puppet. Still it would have been difficult to persuade him to spare Rendon Howe after what he did. Maybe Loghain thought to lie to Cailan, that the Couslands were plotting treason and Rendon Howe threatened to expose Bryce for it, which caused the Couslands to attack and Howe to defend himself. Without the human noble and a Duncan who went to Highever Castle there to tell Cailan the truth, he probably would have believed Loghain.
 

Still, I think Loghain was plotting Cailan's overthrow before Ostagar. I think it all goes back to Anora, and Loghain's suspicion that Cailan would divorce her. He had already cheated on her numerous times anyway. Killing the Couslands is when Loghain set things into motion. He needed the entire family line out of the way, even Oren, because that's the only way he would be the sole surviving teyrn, and thus the highest ranking noble in Ferelden. Indeed, if you play an origin other than the human noble his takeover is slightly easier because there is no other teyrn in that case. For example, Howe is named Teyrn of Highever by Loghain and no one contests it.

[Vanalia]

I'm playing again from the start and at Ostagar before the battle, everyone is saying that Cailan is often going out without bodyguards, and it makes Loghain mad because he thinks of his security, or that Cailan wants to be on the frontline and Loghain disagrees, etc.

 

It seems that Loghain cares about Cailan's safety, he doesn't sound like a man who wants him dead. When I used my "persuasion" to be able to talk to Loghain before the battle (thing I couldn't do in my other playthroughs because my persuasion level was not high enough), I told him that Cailan was a fool/not serious enough, and Loghain defended him, saying that he was still young and that I should take that into account.

 

I don't have the feeling that he hates him, just that they have different tempers and they disagree very often, because Cailan "waves him off" every time Loghain tries to talk to him about strategy or things like this. Cailan is immature and irresponsible and only thinks about glory and epic tales people would write about him.

 

Loghain is not the type of man who wants glory or the throne, even in the books, he hated being the center of attention, he does what needs to be done for Ferelden, not for himself. Yes of course Cailan cheating on Anora and people who spread rumors about Anora being sterile upsets him, but it's also because she is his daughter and he doesn't like to see her being cheated on almost officially (everyone knows it). It's mainly about his daughter's reputation.