The best RPG villain

[sser]

- He is a lot like a Cold War warrior, with a lot of ideals burned into him from a long war with the Orlesians; so basically he's paranoid of anything having to do with them. It's through this mindset that all his decisions get filtered through.

OK fine, but we only hear about this second-hand. If we heard from a lot of people how fucked up the war was/met a lot of war veterans, it would be a lot better. The only info we've got on the war is from one guy: Loghain. That sucks. It's the exact same problem as when the game tells us about what a brilliant strategist he is: the writers are telling us, but they aren't showing us. If it weren't for Loghain, I wouldn't even know that a war even happened.

The Cold War analogy doesn't really fit. Nobody was paranoid of Russia being a threat in the late 90's after the Cold War ended, so Loghain's position doesn't make much sense. I mean sure, there was an embargo on Cuba (still is), but that was never really about ideology.

I agree that it isn't as fleshed out as well as it could be. The paranoia of Russia comes from the foot soldiers of the Cold War, not necessarily the world leaders. If you talk to former (or even current) intelligence workers, or State Department folks, you will find people very much still hateful or paranoid of Russians or anything Soviet. I'm only referencing my personal experiences, though.

- He didn't believe there was going to be a blight, or at least wasn't taking it seriously. Few did, as I recall only certain individuals "saw" the archdemon that signaled a very bad blight. This is important to realize as everything he did concerned his paranoia of Orlais and the re-loss of Ferelden (sp; whatever the Kingdom was called). IIRC, everytime someone screaming "blight" at him he shrugged it off, believing it was a distraction to the real "danger" at hand (an Orlesian invasion that wasn't coming).

How could he not believe that there was a threat? There was a huge army amassing - fuck, he was there! Also, it made no sense why he'd leave like that - that's the silliest part. If the Orlesians are such a threat and soldiers are needed to stop them, why let such a huge portion of your country's forces be slaughtered by them? If you're so gung-ho about defending your country from foreign invasion, doesn't make much sense to sit back while half your men are being butchered?

I was under the impression that the darkspawn are a common threat, but that a blight is something completely different. Darkspawn armies appearing is one thing, but a blight is when it's a gigantic horde pouring over the countryside with the archdemon or whatever right behind it. I think this is also why the King was so happy to be on the frontlines; he thought they would just smash this little army and he'd go home with some glory.

I think Loghain had the main portion of the army in waiting. At least that's what I inferred (maybe it was explained; been awhile since I've played it). He let the frontline eat shit and die while he took the main force and left, consolidating his power and keeping his army healthy for the Orlesians. I agree, again, that this is not fleshed out well enough.

The problem is that this makes him a fucking moron. This is just a really thin justification here - it's a big stretch to believe this. He's suspicious that the Wardens might be spies... so he lets them AND a ton of his own people get killed along the way just because he's paranoid? You'd have to really be reaching pretty far to make sense of this.

He's paranoid. Of course he looks like a moron, he was making decisions (and justifying them) due to threats that did not even exist. That's what I took from it. Based on my own thoughts, I figure that the army he took home was enough to go fight off an Orlesian invasion -- not a giant swarm of darkspawn and a huge dragon that he thought wasn't out there.

Loghain is not the most perfect villain ever, but quite frankly the competition for that spot is pretty sparse. Hell, DA ended up going the "evil for sake of evil" route anyway by making the archdemon the main enemy. I 100% agree with whoever said Loghain should have been the main plot. They should have dumped the archdemon shit and really fleshed Loghain out instead of using him as a small stepping stone to fight the Big Bad Dragon.

 

[octavius]

DP

 

[octavius]

It's not that she can't act, it's that the writing is fucking horrible. And I wonder who's responsible for that.

And I never said anything about Gaider.

Gee, I must have misunderstood that whole "the writing is fucking horrible. And I wonder who's responsible for that.

"

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

He's paranoid. Of course he looks like a moron, he was making decisions (and justifying them) due to threats that did not even exist. That's what I took from it. Based on my own thoughts, I figure that the army he took home was enough to go fight off an Orlesian invasion -- not a giant swarm of darkspawn and a huge dragon that he thought wasn't out there.

The problem is that he doesn't really do anything to prepare for an Orlesian invasion, he just sits in the castle and bitches about Orlesians being about to invade.

Also, weren't we told several times that the majority of Ferelden's army was lost in the Battle of Herp's Derp?

 

[curry]

It's not that she can't act, it's that the writing is fucking horrible. And I wonder who's responsible for that.

And I never said anything about Gaider.

Gee, I must have misunderstood that whole "the writing is fucking horrible. And I wonder who's responsible for that.

"

You fell into my elaborate trap.