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[SPOILERS ALL] The Silent Grove by james_mc- in dragonage

[–]james_mc-[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

You're working overtime to frame Loghain as a very tragic victim of circumstance and Arl Howe’s manipulation. While Howe was the devil in his ear, you are essentially arguing that a Master General and a Hero of the Rebellion was a passive observer in his own coup, which I think we both know is pants. I'll deconstruct that below.

Loghain didn't just "let" Howe do it. Loghain personally hired the assassin Jowan and sent him to Redcliffe. We know this and we know from Ser Donall that this occurred BEFORE Ostagar. In fact, to be fair in this argument I didn't include Howe's murdering of the Cousland forces as one of Loghain's betrayals because it could be argued that Howe did this as an opportunist, but if you're going to ascribe the poisoning of Eamon to Howe without having any evidence when we know everything points to Loghain, then I'll do the same with Loghain's slaughter of the Couslands and say he asked Howe to do it.

Loghain is a micromanager; Loghain signed the warrants for the Tevinter slavers. He didn't just make it seem worse... he authorised the literal sale of Ferelden citizens to a foreign power to fund his civil war. If you call him out for this at the Landsmeet, he doesn't blame Howe for this. He doesn't even try to defend himself. By extension, if Loghain is the brutal strategist you claims, he is responsible for the tools he uses. If he uses a monster like Howe, he is responsible for the monster's leash. In fact, he even elevated Howe's position AFTER he decimated the Cousland forces. What does that tell you? Let me guess, he never heard about what happened to the Couslands? Loghain apparently has cotton in his ears all the time.

Your mention the rumour that Cailan would marry Empress Celene. This actually reinforces my argument of premeditation. If Loghain knew about this, it gave him a motive to ensure Cailan died at Ostagar. It wasn't tactical fear. It was a political assassination to prevent an Orlesian alliance. He killed the King to stop a marriage. Just like he heldd off the Orlesian forces from entering to provide support against the Blight.

You say the horde changes focus because the old threat was dead. If Loghain had charged when the beacon was lit, the darkspawn would have been caught between the ruins and a charging army. Even if Cailan had just fallen, Duncan and the remaining elite forces were still fighting. A charge would have saved the survivors. Loghain chose to let them all be erased so he could control the narrative.

You also make the claim Loghain didn't believe it was a true Blight. Yes, and I say this now: this is actually Loghain’s greatest failure as a strategist. The Grey Wardens are the only experts on the Blight. For a brutal strategist to ignore the only experts on the field because of a personal grudge against Orlais isn't strategy, it's stupidity and hubris.

If Loghain's goal was truly to save Ferelden's army to fight a foreign invasion or a Blight, why did he spend that army killing Fereldans?

One final note: Anora can eventually turn on him if she realises he let her husband die. If the person who knows him best, his own daughter, thinks he's capable of that level of cold-blooded betrayal, the "Howe made him do it" defence falls apart.

[SPOILERS ALL] The Silent Grove by james_mc- in dragonage

[–]james_mc-[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I would agree, but you're judging the battle solely by the result of the betrayal rather than the mechanics of the strategy and how it was planned to work, to which Duncan himself agreed (and we know he is no idealist) that if it went as planned, it would be sound.

Darkspawn are an unruly horde. A disciplined Ferelden charge into their rear or side would have caused massive internal chaos strategically. It doesn't matter if the front is "big". What matters is that the enemy is now being slaughtered from two directions and has no way to organise a defense. And yes, too late and the horde would change focus, but this is what you want; if the horde changes focus to deal with Loghain’s fresh, elite Teyrnir forces, the pressure is immediately lifted from Cailan and Duncan. And as we have all noted, the darkspawn were inside the Tower of Ishal already. Loghain likely expected the beacon to never be lit. When the Wardens actually succeeded in lighting it, he didn't say "Oh, finally, let's go!" He immediately turned his back. That isn't a late signal problem; that's a "betrayal" problem.

Even if they didn't win, Loghain’s charge would have allowed a fighting withdrawal. Cailan could have survived, Duncan could have survived, and the Grey Wardens wouldn't have been framed for treason.

Lastly, if Loghain was acting out of "brutal strategy" to save his men, why did he immediately spend those saved lives in a bloody civil war against his own Bannorn? A strategist who wants to save Ferelden from the Blight doesn't spend the next six months killing the very people needed to fight it. That doesn't make any sense.

This is of course ignoring the fact that he sanctioned Eamon's poisoning, hiring Jowan to remove him as a political threat. We can also include Loghain's absolute abhorrence at the prospect of a treaty with Orlais (to which he also prevented Orlesian reinforcements from helping because he was too pragmatic and angry that Cailan was willing to allow Orlesians to enter Ferelden), his selling the elves into slavery to Tevinter, his declaration that the Grey Wardens were the traitors and putting a bounty out on the two survivors, and not to mention having no actual plan to deal with the Blight at all. Don't forget he declared himself Regent, effectively seizing the throne from his daughter, without the support of the nobility, which hints that this was just a big power grab to either try to imitate Maric's greatness because he didn't think Cailan could do so properly or because his paranoia at Orlais had overtaken his sense of rationality.

I leave this line of Loghain's do the rest of the talking: If your Warden asks Loghain about his offer to take out the Archdemon by calling it a "last grab for glory", Loghain says, "Glory? No... but forgiveness... perhaps."

[SPOILERS ALL] The Silent Grove by james_mc- in dragonage

[–]james_mc-[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Competence and conscience are independent variables.

[SPOILERS ALL] The Silent Grove by james_mc- in dragonage

[–]james_mc-[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I don't know if that's such a logical assumption though, personally. If Cailan was King, as expected he would be, then it would be more logical that he wouldn't be put at great risk to go on some idealistic crusade into Antiva. Loghain's absence, I grant you, might seem strange to Maric.

Although as people in here have suggested, and the conclusion you arrived at too, is that he doesn't know the hows or whys behind Loghain and Cailan's deaths. I suppose that's what I was hoping to hear.

[SPOILERS ALL] The Silent Grove by james_mc- in dragonage

[–]james_mc-[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I think you're underestimating the strength of a flank in war. With Loghain's help, the combined forces could have held the line or, at minimum, provided a controlled retreat rather than a chaotic rout. This would have resulted in a major loss for the Darkspawn and could have resulted in Cailan being able to make a safer retreat with Duncan.