24 réponses à ce sujet

[mickey111]

So Saren and Illusive man had potential to be good antagonists but Bioware every time used the indoctrination excuse to hand wave their actions. Same thing happened to meredith of DAII (indoctrination/red lyrium, potato/potahto)

 

Loghain was good (if you can get past the cartoon villain looking face of his) because he could have been the hero of the story until some novice warden kicked in he door, ruining his plans. Game didn't go out of the way to hide his deeper motivations particularly deep, I probably can't tell anyone anything new about him. He decided that the boring king person (so boring I can't remember his name) was a moron and refused to throw his troops into a useless battle, and like most people of exceptional talent he was a very motivated and ambitious person so naturally he thought he was the one to stop the darkspawn as such people are likely to do. 

 

Needless to say I found sparing his existence to take the black become a warden and have him kill the dragon to be the most satisfactory ending. He gets to be the hero he thought was needed and a bit of redemption for his fairly harsh plans of allying with slavers and letting the dumb king  Cailen die

[Wulfram]

Meh, Loghain is pretty boring and straightforwardly villainous unless you recruit him. Then he gets a sudden personality change.

I agree that Bioware could do with avoiding indoctrination and other forms of mental influence, though. I mean, it was an important part of the Reaper story, but we're done with the Reapers now.

[Donk]

So Saren and Illusive man had potential to be good antagonists but Bioware every time used the indoctrination excuse to hand wave their actions. Same thing happened to meredith of DAII (indoctrination/red lyrium, potato/potahto)

 

Loghain was good (if you can get past the cartoon villain looking face of his) because he could have been the hero of the story until some novice warden kicked in he door, ruining his plans. Game didn't go out of the way to hide his deeper motivations particularly deep, I probably can't tell anyone anything new about him. He decided that the boring king person (so boring I can't remember his name) was a moron and refused to throw his troops into a useless battle, and like most people of exceptional talent he was a very motivated and ambitious person so naturally he thought he was the one to stop the darkspawn as such people are likely to do. 

 

Needless to say I found sparing his existence to take the black become a warden and have him kill the dragon to be the most satisfactory ending. He gets to be the hero he thought was needed and a bit of redemption for his fairly harsh plans of allying with slavers and letting the dumb king  Cailen die

 

So.. you want an antagonist that you can recruit?

[Il Divo]

Great voice-acting and dialogue aside, Loghain's plan was actually pretty terrible in regard to defeating the Darkspawn. In that sense, Saren's plan felt much more believable (pre-indoctrination that is).

[PhroXenGold]

Bah, forget about Loghain, we need more antagonists like Irenicus or the Glorious Strategist. Nothing BW have done in recent years is a patch on them.

[Shechinah]

...

 

I disagree with you on Loghain being the hero of the story since while he may have abandoned the battlefield to spare his troops dying in a lost battle and had a sympathic backstory in regards to his understandable distrust and dislike of Orlais, he believed in a threat with no presence and ignored a threat with devastating presence.

 

 Loghain thought the threat that Fereldan faced were not the darkspawn but Orlais.  

 

The darkspawn is the least of Loghain's focus as he falsely accuses the Grey Wardens of regicide despite knowing their innocence. He doubts that the darkspawn are an indication of a Blight and rejects Orlesian reinforcements even Grey Wardens even after the darkspawn are causing a great deathtoll and destruction because he believes the Orlesians will attempt to usurp leadership over the country should they be allowed to enter Fereldan.   

 

Loghain allowed Tevinter slavers to enslave Ferelden citizens from the alienages in return for profit to fund his war. His quote at the Landsmeet: "How much fereldan blood does Orlesian gold buy these days?" is hypocritical because of this and the question could have been turned on it's head by being asked of him; "How much Fereldan blood does Tevinter gold buy these days?" 

 

Loghain's belief in an Orlesian plot is so strong that he imagings culprits, accomplices and evidence where there is none. He believes the Warden to be agent of Orlais regardless of anything they say or do.

 

Loghain represented a human threat while the Archdemon represented a supernatural threat.
 

[Shechinah]

That said, I do very much like the idea of a "human" threat especially in Mass Effect.

 

The antagonist who believes what they are doing is for the safety and good of others even if they may be ultimately misguided and their effort cause more harm than good. They start out as someone with a understandable motivation and reasoning but eventually they resort to more and more questionable measures because they believe it is necessary and justify it as such.  Someone who wants to ensure the safety of the exploration crew at any cost even if it means adopting a mindset of "them or us" in regards to Andromeda's native species.

[Ahriman]

So Saren and Illusive man had potential to be good antagonists but Bioware every time used the indoctrination excuse to hand wave their actions. Same thing happened to meredith of DAII (indoctrination/red lyrium, potato/potahto)
 
Loghain was good (if you can get past the cartoon villain looking face of his) because he could have been the hero of the story until some novice warden kicked in he door, ruining his plans. Game didn't go out of the way to hide his deeper motivations particularly deep, I probably can't tell anyone anything new about him. He decided that the boring king person (so boring I can't remember his name) was a moron and refused to throw his troops into a useless battle, and like most people of exceptional talent he was a very motivated and ambitious person so naturally he thought he was the one to stop the darkspawn as such people are likely to do.

Likely to do? You are going along with his idiot ball? Only grey wardens could stop the Blight, but he killed Ferelden branch and stopped Orlesian branch. Brilliant plan for mass suicide.

[The Hierophant]

All i'm hoping for is that the main antagonist isn't some brainwashed goon or AI with terrible logic in this one.

[Cirvante]

Another of his quotes at the Landsmeet demonstrates this:  "How fortunate Maric did not live to see his son ready to hand Ferelden over to those who enslaved us for a century!"
 

 

That quote is from the strategy meeting though.

 

Developers have confirmed that Loghain was right in his decision to save his troops from certain death. He was also kinda right about Cailan handing Ferelden over to Orlais, considering the letters you find in 'Back to Ostagar' which strongly indicate that Cailan planned to divorce Loghain's daughter Anora and marry Empress Celene instead. He did make the strategic mistake of dismissing the blight and focusing on the civil war instead, that much we can agree on.

 

He is a perfect character example of the proverbs "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain" and "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

 

I agree with the OP insofar as that Bioware should make the antagonist more human and therefore fallible. Completely basing the antagonist's motivations and choices on 'hurr indoctrination' makes him too one-dimensional in my opinion. Knight-Commander Meredith was an excellent character up until she was reduced to 'hurr red lyrium'. The sad thing is that she would have been completely believable as a character had they scratched the whole crazy, glowing red eyes BS. An antagonist who is a well-intentioned extremist and can make his own questionable choices (and perhaps even justify them) is much more morally ambiguous and thereby interesting than one who is under the control of some evil influence.

[Shechinah]

That quote is from the strategy meeting though.

 

Ah, my mistake. Thank you 
 

[Sidney]

Loghain's voice acting lets people ignore that his plan is BSC. We're being overrun by hordes of undead-ish/demon-ish things and now is the time to have a power struggle? Short of buying a DLC in the base game there is diddly to support his Orleasian paranoia and frankly even in RtO it feels like it was dropped in almost as a retcon.

His plan at Ostagar is either treasonous or stupid neither one makes him the potential hero. His actions after Ostagar are full on twirly mustache level bad.

Indoctrination isn't about hand waving Saren and TIM it is about that they aren't the bad guy. If you left ME1 thinking Saren and not Sovereign was your problem you might belong on the Citadel council.

[themikefest]

I like Loghain. Too bad he couldn't be recruited earlier in the game

[Malleficae]

I want that but Loghain needed to be romancable so better make him/her romancable. :|

[Guitar-Hero]

Id ather be Loghain. You think you are the protagonist but actually you are the antagonist. It would ****** alot of people of but hey, just make a new ending thru DLC like before for people who can't  appriciate it.

[AlanC9]

I disagree with you on Loghain being the hero of the story since while he may have abandoned the battlefield to spare his troops dying in a lost battle and had a sympathic backstory in regards to his understandable distrust and dislike of Orlais, he believed in a threat with no presence and ignored a threat with devastating presence.
 
 Loghain thought the threat that Fereldan faced were not the darkspawn but Orlais.  

So Loghain could have been the hero of the story, if he was in the story he thought he was in instead of the story he was actually in.

[AlanC9]

Id ather be Loghain. You think you are the protagonist but actually you are the antagonist. It would ****** alot of people of but hey, just make a new ending thru DLC like before for people who can't  appriciate it.

Like, say, Continuum? Or even the ME3 Dark Energy plot, where the Reapers are trying to save the universe and Shepard's trying to destroy it.

[Cheviot]

Like, say, Continuum? Or even the ME3 Dark Energy plot, where the Reapers are trying to save the universe and Shepard's trying to destroy it.

Or the certain endings of the Genophage and Quarian v Geth stories, where Shepard can doom whole races should he choose to. I remember thinking "this all seems rather antagonistic."

[pdusen]

So Loghain could have been the hero of the story, if he was in the story he thought he was in instead of the story he was actually in.

 

Ten thousand likes upon you.

[Fredward]

If you drop the redemption arc from the equation I'm down. I want a villain who does not want or seek redemption because they don't see their actions as wrong. I might get that with Solas. Maaaybe.

[Majestic Jazz]

So.. you want an antagonist that you can recruit?

Why not?

[Panda]

I have liked Meredith and Illusive Man more as villains, I think they have been Bioware's strongest one's.

[Hiemoth]

I have liked Meredith and Illusive Man more as villains, I think they have been Bioware's strongest one's.

 

Agreed with this, with the addition of the Arishok as the antagonist. I love the Glorious Strategist as well, but that is an older game.

 

I feel all of them had stronger motivations and spoke more about the dangers of fanaticism, especially Meredith. As much as I love the Arishok, and I adore him to an insane degree, I feel that Meredith is often overlooked in large part due to the issues with Act 3 in DA2. Her base motivation is really solid and they manage to show her escalation in her fanaticism. Even the red lyrium, while affecting her, still only heightened her internal issues instead of creating them from the air.

[rashie]

So.. you want an antagonist that you can recruit?

I think what the OP is asking for is a villain that you can relate to and understand his motives rather than just pure comic book evil, more so than being able to recruit him. Its harder to pull off but when well managed it works so much better than what Corypheus was. In more recent Bioware games, Loghain and to a degree Saren is a good example of this, despite the reliance on indoctrination. Not a bioware game but id also toss an honourable mention to the main villain of pillars of eternity, despite the somewhat lackluster main plot.

[Deebo305]

I'll never understand why people like Loghain, everytime I think of him all I see is a man who incompetently lead his nation to near ruin. He did nothing noteworthy aside from getting his head chopped off and hiring poorly skilled assassins

 

How people consider him good but Corypheus bad I'll never understand  Both Saren and Illusive Man beat him out easily as better villains