I’d have put this in the Dragon Age thread, but it’s kind of a zombie now – no surprise, since the game’s over a year old.
So, for spoiler space: I restarted playing Dragon Age when it started to get cold outside. Somehow now cold days equal playing Dragon Age in my brain, which I guess is no surprise considering it came out in November. I wanted to get a character all the way through all the downloadable content and everything. I know I won’t be able to put the character in DA2, but who knows, maybe I’ll get bennies for it. Maybe my decisions will have mattered.
Anyway –
I’m playing through as I sort of think the game intends, as a human noble. Female, too, and a cunning roguey hero who fully intends to be queen as soon as she finds out that her erstwhile boyfriend is the heir to the throne. She goes around doing the right thing mostly because it’s a good way to get people on her side (The golem thing is just creepy and will piss off a party member that just happens to be able to crush me in my sleep; Bhelen, however, will make things more interesting in Orzammar. Mages are ridiculously powerful, so let’s not massacre them. The cultists are idiots if they think that their dragon is Andraste, and you don’t get phenomenal cosmic power from idiots. Nobody wants werewolves on their side. Et cetera).
Meanwhile her family was murdered by her father’s friend and comrade in arms, down to her wee nephew, and all her new brothers and sisters just got betrayed along with the king when that asshole Loghain sounded the retreat. He sent assassins after her, he poisoned one of her allies, he lets his own people be tortured, sold into slavery, and murdered, he’s obviously gone mad with power…
And I can’t help feeling gutted when I execute him.
He retreated from the battle and watched the king die and honestly believed the Grey Wardens were responsible because he thought the true threat – the one he’d spent his life fighting – was elsewhere. He was still fighting the last war in his heart. He’d grown up on deprivation, on vassalage. He was one of the people who rose up and tore his country out of the hands of Orlais. He was a big damn hero and did more for the stability of Ferelden than the Grey Wardens ever did. When he says nobody else in the room has any right to make decisions about what happens to the country? He’s kind of right.
Apart from Ostagar – which is a big deal, but apart from that – the evil laid at his doorstep is mostly due to giving Howe power. There probably wasn’t anyone else sleazy enough in Ferelden to help him (which, let’s face it, is another indication that military genius he may be but he’s not very good at making the right kind of friends).
Every time I play it, I want to give him the chance to take the Oath. And every time I play it, I wuss out because I want to keep Alistair in the party and it’s impossible if you get Loghain. I would rather throw him in the tower with his daughter, even, to deal with if Alistair dies (which he never does, because I have a soft spot for the nug-head).
So thanks, Bioware. You made two characters who are so compelling I don’t want to leave either of them behind and then forced me to choose between them. This is why I keep buying your games, you realize. :mad: 
