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[The_Mac23]

Chaotic good or lawful evil?

[Taki17]

Lawful evil. As the description says on http://easydamus.com/lawfulevil.html:

 

"He cares about tradition, loyalty, and order but not about freedom, dignity, or life." - Loghain is a Fereldan patriot through and through, and would do anything to defend his homeland.

 

"He plays by the rules but without mercy or compassion." - The retreat at Ostagar could be considered a stragecially wise decision, but at the cost of the king and hundreds of soldiers. Also, his actions during his regency and the landsmeet support this sentence.

 

"He is comfortable in a hierarchy and would like to rule, but is willing to serve." - Loghain assumes the position of the regent when the opportunity arises, but he was content as serving as an advisor and general under Maric, and again, is willing to serve as a Warden.

 

"He condemns others not according to their actions but according to race, religion, homeland, or social rank." - Loghain allied with Howe, even knowing what atrocities has he committed against the Couslands; despises every orlesian because they are orlesians and allowed the Denerim elves to be sold by slavers.

 

"He is loath to break laws or promises." - He might have broken a few laws, but he intended to fulfill each and every one of his promises, like helping Ferelden through the Blight.

 

Whereas a chaotic good goes like this: "A chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with little regard for what others expect of him. He makes his own way, but he's kind and benevolent. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. He hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. He follows his own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society."

 

Only the first and last senteces apply to Loghain, as he is not kind, nor benevolent, does not believe in goodness, and is not afraid of intimidation. A chaotic good might be someone who wants to do good thing no matter what, so it would be probably Alistair. Loghain might have some traits of a chaotic good, but they are in extreme the minority compared to his lawful evil traits.

[The_Mac23]

Awesome explanation, thank you! I always considered Alistair more on the lawful good side more so than chaotic. But like Loghain, I definitely see points where either would work.

[Illegitimus]

 

 

Only the first and last senteces apply to Loghain, as he is not kind, nor benevolent, does not believe in goodness, and is not afraid of intimidation. A chaotic good might be someone who wants to do good thing no matter what, so it would be probably Alistair. 

 

That's not Alistair.  Alistair does not "make his own way with little regard for what others expect of him".  He does not "distrust authority".  He does not believe that freedom is the highest good.  If anyone fits that slot it's Leliana.  

[Taki17]

That's not Alistair.  Alistair does not "make his own way with little regard for what others expect of him".  He does not "distrust authority".  He does not believe that freedom is the highest good.  If anyone fits that slot it's Leliana.  

She would've been my other guess. There was another thread about D&D alignment in DA, there were also some debates about Alistair and Leliana.

[sylvanaerie]

My issue with categorizing Loghain "lawful evil" is that he isn't loathe to break laws.

 

Slavery is illegal in Ferelden, yet he still sells the elves to fund the Civil War.  Howe killing the Cousland's was out and out murder, yet Loghain turns a blind eye to it for expediency--however Howe seizing the Cousland estate is a case of 'the stronger taking control from the weak', which fits a LE.  Seizing the regency is iffy since it could be Anora allowed him to do so without much protest, though she does object to his actions later once she sees he isn't doing anything about the Blight.  He has a somewhat code of honor, but that gets tossed aside when it's expedient (as with Howe, and during the events of The Stolen Throne), so it's not something to which he adheres strictly (as I'd expect a LE character to do).  Walking away from the battle at Ostagar might serve his own self interest, but that's hardly "Lawful" behavior since it's in defiance of authority.  Yet he also would prefer Anora (a person who ruled Ferelden well) to be queen, it's not something he takes for his own, another Lawful trait.

 

He's quite willing to toss Howe under a bus at the second Landsmeet, putting the blame on his deceased ally to deflect his own guilt (lying).  He also makes promises to end the Blight, yet when counseled to do so by Anora and Howe, he ignores them and presses the Civil War.

 

I'd say, by his actions, he falls closer to "Neutral Evil" with strong "Lawful tendencies", since he does have somewhat a code of honor he tries to adhere to, if not rigidly so, during the course of the game.  Afterward I would say he falls strongly into Lawful Nuetral territory since he becomes a good Grey Warden once recruited (and rehabilitated).

 

Really it's difficult to pin any of them down to any alignment with strength of conviction.  Alistair comes off "Neutral Good" to me and Leliana "Chaotic Good".  A better example of "Chaotic Good" would be Zorro or Robin Hood.  Lawful Evil is more like Darth Vader.

 

But of the two you picked, I'd choose "Lawful Evil" because he's just not chaotic enough, and hardly does 'good' actions.  He justifies them in the name of patriotism, but they still aren't good.  And some of them break the prevailing laws of the land.

[Illegitimus]

My issue with categorizing Loghain "lawful evil" is that he isn't loathe to break laws.

 

Yeah he is.  "Loathe" to break laws doesn't mean "will never break a law".  It just means he's reluctant to.  A lot of people trip over that when dealing with the Lawful end of alignment because of the name, but really "Law" would be more accurately described as "Order".  A Lawful person will break laws if those laws lead to a net decrease in order just as a Lawful Good person will resist a law requiring him to do blatantly Evil things, and Loghain is not in fact personally breaking the law against slavery.  He just accepting money that is desperately needed to save the nation in return for temporarily turning a blind eye to those who are, concentrating instead on his real priority, suppressing rebels.  And the lawbreakers he is allowing to operate are only preying on a chaotic element of society, the elves who were refusing to accept their place and actually rioting against their overlords. The idea that a Lawful person is incapable of pragmatism even when he's Lawful Evil leads to the conclusion that Lawful people do not exist which isn't the intent of the categorization.  

 

In fact Loghain's temporary tolerance of the slavers is a lot like his betrayal of the king.  Instead of just murdering the man, Loghain chooses to minimize his involvement by simply not saving him.  Instead of sending his own people out to grab elves he accepts big money to just...do nothing about it.  

[ThomasBlaine]

True Neutral, definitely, leaning towards Lawful and Evil respectively. He's very disciplined and principled, but also doesn't hesitate to compromise his honor and use underhanded tactics to secure Ferelden's independence, hence neither Lawful nor Chaotic. He clearly cares about Ferelden and its people in a general sense and would gladly die for his country, but he doesn't seem to respect or value individuals unless they earn it of him and has little trouble sacrificing defenseless people if he feels that it's necessary to save the rest, hence neither Good nor Evil, although he's within shouting distance of the latter along with full-blown patriotic fanaticism.

 

I never understood why people blame him for "betraying" the King at Ostagar, Cailen clearly got himself killed insisting on fighting with the Wardens against Loghain's advice, Duncan clearly facilitated it by not sharing why Grey Wardens are necessary to kill the Archdemon making their presence in the vanguard a huge tactical blunder, and the PC clearly missed the signal and lit the beacon too late for the flanking attack to save the battle. Even blaming the entire disaster on the Grey Wardens makes a lot of sense seeing as it mostly was Duncan's fault, Loghain had to find a way to rally the rest of the country and only two Wardens even remained alive to suffer because of the decision. So far as I can see Loghain only skirts the Evil line when he has Eamon poisoned, which kind of makes sense given Eamon's Orlesian influences and criminal incompetence, and the only really evil thing he does in the game is to sell the Alienage elves to Tevinter, all for the good of Ferelden.

[Illegitimus]

 

 

I never understood why people blame him for "betraying" the King at Ostagar, Cailen clearly got himself killed insisting on fighting with the wardens against Loghain's advice, Duncan clearly facilitated it by not sharing why Grey Wardens are necessary to kill the Archdemon making their presence in the vanguard a huge tactical blunder, and the PC clearly missed the signal and lit the beacon too late for the flanking attack to save the battle.

 

1.  It is not in fact clear that the PC hadn't lit the beacon before the situation was irretrievable

2.  Even if it was clear to the player, Loghain had no other source of information by which he could determine that it was too late.  Note that his second in command had no such idea.  

3.  The wardens position near the vanguard wasn't a huge tactical blunder.  A large group of wardens is archdemon and darkspawn bait.  Had the Archdemon made it to the surface yet, it would have been drawn to them.  Had they been at the rear of the formation, it would have attacked from behind.  Since wardens were the best darkspawn-fighting troops they would be best equipped to hold the line and serve as the anvil while Loghain's flanking force came in as the hammer.  And if it was a huge tactical blunder, then Loghain, the military genius was the one who made it since he planned the disposition of the troops.  

 

Yes, Cailan should not have been with the wardens.  If he had not been then Loghain's decision to leave them hanging in the breeze might not have led to Cailan's death.  It could be he only intended to betray the wardens at first and his attempt to persuade Cailan to be elsewhere was sincere.  But the fact remains Loghain did nothing except plan the battle, and desert the field without carrying out his part of the plan.  It's a very passive aggressive way to accomplish the deaths of people you don't like, to kill without killing.  

[ThomasBlaine]

1.  It is not in fact clear that the PC hadn't lit the beacon before the situation was irretrievable

2.  Even if it was clear to the player, Loghain had no other source of information by which he could determine that it was too late.  Note that his second in command had no such idea.  

3.  The wardens position near the vanguard wasn't a huge tactical blunder.  A large group of wardens is archdemon and darkspawn bait.  Had the Archdemon made it to the surface yet, it would have been drawn to them.  Had they been at the rear of the formation, it would have attacked from behind.  Since wardens were the best darkspawn-fighting troops they would be best equipped to hold the line and serve as the anvil while Loghain's flanking force came in as the hammer.  And if it was a huge tactical blunder, then Loghain, the military genius was the one who made it since he planned the disposition of the troops.  

 

Yes, Cailan should not have been with the wardens.  If he had not been then Loghain's decision to leave them hanging in the breeze might not have led to Cailan's death.  It could be he only intended to betray the wardens at first and his attempt to persuade Cailan to be elsewhere was sincere.  But the fact remains Loghain did nothing except plan the battle, and desert the field without carrying out his part of the plan.  It's a very passive aggressive way to accomplish the deaths of people you don't like, to kill without killing.  

 

1&2: Flanking charges tend to need proper timing to be any good at all. We never find out exactly under which circumstances the signal was sent so it's perfectly conceivable for him to know that too much time had passed for the agreed-upon conditions to still be in effect, as he specifically noted that the lighting of the beacon, i.e: the timing of his charge, was vital. A plan was in place and what failed was the timing of the beacon, which so far as he was aware was entirely the Warden's fault.

 

3: A large group of wardens is indeed Darkspawn bait, but why would the Archdemon want to come anywhere near them? Putting almost every Warden including the Commander in the vanguard makes them the first to fight and the first to fall against hurlocks and genlocks while the Archdemon laughs from hundreds of miles away as the only people who can actually kill it die stupidly, which is exactly what happened. The main army should have been used to occupy the main horde while the Wardens looked for an opportunity to corner Archdemon, as in the end battle, and with only two dozen wardens in Ferelden sparing them as much as possible for the Archdemon becomes even more crucial. The battle strategy at Ostagar and Cailan's dialogue reflect that Duncan told neither him nor Loghain any of this, meaning that he willingly let nearly every Warden in the country be put in the most dangerous position possible with no reason to believe that any of them were going to see the Archdemon. Based on that alone he deserved to die a hundred times over, and Cailan's death was just part of the fallout.

 

Duncan gave Loghain no reason to believe that the Wardens were really worth saving, and Cailan alone wasn't worth risking the country's remaining forces in an obviously mistimed charge for. Loghain made the smartest decision with the information he had, and did his best to salvage the aftermath of the battle to keep Ferelden in fighting shape despite Cailan's and Duncan's incredible screwup. The idea that he wanted Cailan dead and deliberately sabotaged the battle has no basis whatsoever in the game and is in fact wildly out of character for him.

[Illegitimus]

1&2: Flanking charges tend to need proper timing to be any good at all. We never find out exactly under which circumstances the signal was sent so it's perfectly conceivable for him to know that too much time had passed for the agreed-upon conditions to still be in effect, as he specifically noted that the lighting of the beacon, i.e: the timing of his charge, was vital. A plan was in place and what failed was the timing of the beacon, which so far as he was aware was entirely the Warden's fault.

 

<sigh>  Once again if he actually knew what the right time to attack really was, then he should have forgotten the signal and just attacked at the right time.  It's actually how Custer got to be a general.  The signal to charge didn't come when it should have so he charged anyway on his own initiative.  Of course fundamentally any military plan that crucially depends on pin-point timing with no margin for error is going to fail anyway and military genius Loghain is the one who came up with this guaranteed-to-fail plan.  What really happens though, if your timing is off on the flanking maneuver is "You take more casualties." (assuming that the plan was ever going to work at all).  But it only turns into a rout when half your army doesn't show up at all allowing the other half to be defeated in detail.  

[ThomasBlaine]

<sigh>  Once again if he actually knew what the right time to attack really was, then he should have forgotten the signal and just attacked at the right time.  It's actually how Custer got to be a general.  The signal to charge didn't come when it should have so he charged anyway on his own initiative.  Of course fundamentally any military plan that crucially depends on pin-point timing with no margin for error is going to fail anyway and military genius Loghain is the one who came up with this guaranteed-to-fail plan.  What really happens though, if your timing is off on the flanking maneuver is "You take more casualties." (assuming that the plan was ever going to work at all).  But it only turns into a rout when half your army doesn't show up at all allowing the other half to be defeated in detail.  

 

Ah, I see. So because charging blindly into massed enemy forces because you might be lucky and get the timing right by accident and not waste your initiative worked once for Custer, the notably reckless nineteenth century cavalry officer who eventually got himself and his entire force decimated for little reason, that should be the fallback plan of all miltary forces everywhere including medieval armored infantry whenever communications break down. Good to know.

 

We also know that the Tower of Ishall is way removed from the clash itself by both distance and terrain and so if nobody -ahem'Duncan'ahem- told you that they tended to do that, you might not expect the heretoforth nigh-mythical Darkspawn to break from their usual near-mindlessness and burrow hundreds of feet nearly straight up through solid rock to take one particular point that isn't actually strategically significant except for the fact that it just happens to be the spot you designated to set up a vital yet-to-be-lit signal fire. Yes, Loghain must be a horrible stategist not to have seen that coming, guess it's all his fault after all.

 

Again, I don't blame him in the slightest for refusing to risk the most highly trained and expensively outfitted remnant of Ferelden's military in the middle of a war of attrition to try and save one very, very, very stupid king who all but threw himself on the enemy's blades and was likely already dead. And again, knowing the exact time to attack given conditions and strategy we aren't aware of and knowing when that time to attack must definitely have passed is not at all the same thing. The darkspawn horde outnumbered Loghain's and Cailan's forces combined, attacking them with no meaningful strategic advantage would result in a long battle that would most likely leave Ferelden defenseless against still-incresing numbers of Darkpawn even if they managed to win.

 

Your baseless condescension is not appreciated.

[Cyberpunk]

Lawful Evil in Origins

Lawful Neutral in Awakening/Inquisition 

[Ghost Gal]

Stupid Evil.

[Illegitimus]

Ah, I see. So because charging blindly into massed enemy forces because you might be lucky and get the timing right by accident and not waste your initiative worked once for Custer, the notably reckless nineteenth century cavalry officer who eventually got himself and his entire force decimated for little reason, that should be the fallback plan of all miltary forces everywhere including medieval armored infantry whenever communications break down. Good to know.

 

 

It would be in fact be preferable to blindly abandoning half your army and your leader to destruction, unless that's the objective.  Look you can't have it both ways.  If he didn't know the right time to attack, then he could not have known that this was the wrong time to attack.  And no, the right response to a breakdown in communications is not "run away", even if he'd had a way to know there was a breakdown in communications.  And he didn't.  

 

And any plan that has no margin for error is a bad plan.  It didn't have to be darkspawn flooding out of that that hole in the ground that Loghain knew about.  The archdemon could have flamed the top of the tower, or the darkspawn magi could have blasted it, the guy in charge of picking the exact right moment to send the signal from the battlefield could have died or misjudged his moment, or Loghain's forces could have run into an obstacle in the dark while executing their manuever.  Any plan that really requires precise timing with no margin for error is a plan that will usually fail in the chaos of real combat.

[jros83]

Loghain needs his own self-titled alignment. Loghain is Loghain.

[Cobra's_back]

Loghain needs his own self-titled alignment. Loghain is Loghain.

He does. When I think of Loghain I think of a guy who will do anything to win. It worked before but not this time. He kept crossing line until it destroyed him.

 

Loghain: "I'll cross the line, if it gets me what i need."

[Dai Grepher]

What he did was unlawful, so he isn't Lawful.

 

I would say he was Ordered Evil. He will break the law if it means securing order under his rules, and he will murder, steal, abduct and sell people, deceive, and threaten to get his way.

[Illegitimus]

What he did was unlawful, so he isn't Lawful.

 

I would say he was Ordered Evil. He will break the law if it means securing order under his rules, and he will murder, steal, abduct and sell people, deceive, and threaten to get his way.

 

"Lawful alignment" is a term of art.  It does not mean "will never break a law".  It actually does mean something closer to "ordered".  

[Aren]

According to the alignment i would say chaotic stupid,i didn't recognize any of his brilliant qualities as tactician that are so claimed by Gaider in the stolen throne.

[Illegitimus]

According to the alignment i would say chaotic stupid,i didn't recognize any of his brilliant qualities as tactician that are so claimed by Gaider in the stolen throne.

 

Since you never saw him command in a battle, how would you?  

[DebatableBubble]

Lawful good, duh. Selling elves into slavery is something we should all do to better ourselves.

[ComedicSociopathy]

A lighter shade of Lawful Evil. 

[ModernAcademic]

Is there an alignment for smouldering elderly gentleman?

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

It would be in fact be preferable to blindly abandoning half your army and your leader to destruction, unless that's the objective.  Look you can't have it both ways.  If he didn't know the right time to attack, then he could not have known that this was the wrong time to attack.  And no, the right response to a breakdown in communications is not "run away", even if he'd had a way to know there was a breakdown in communications.  And he didn't.  

 

And any plan that has no margin for error is a bad plan.  It didn't have to be darkspawn flooding out of that that hole in the ground that Loghain knew about.  The archdemon could have flamed the top of the tower, or the darkspawn magi could have blasted it, the guy in charge of picking the exact right moment to send the signal from the battlefield could have died or misjudged his moment, or Loghain's forces could have run into an obstacle in the dark while executing their manuever.  Any plan that really requires precise timing with no margin for error is a plan that will usually fail in the chaos of real combat.

The right time to attack, in this context, is when all the darkspawn had committed. He can know that there are more pouring into the field (which there were when the signal went up,) but can't necessarily know that there aren't more unless told by someone from a higher elevation who has less issue with tree cover.

 

There might have been margin for error if there had been fewer darkspawn to deal with. If the beacon had gone off too early with a lot fewer darkspawn, Loghain might have been able to cope whether or not he failed to realize what was happening and got flanked. As it was, he didn't even have an opening to charge into.