peopleofthedas | How big is a division?

That's true. I saw some guys discuss this on the BSN forums once and they came up with surprisingly small numbers.

They explained that the cavalry would be accompanied by infantry, of course. Their estimation was that a legion was about 1000 people, with only 100-250 cavalry. Or something to that extend. I can't find the link. :-/

Standing armies are expensive and Orlais is constantly disputing the boundaries with Nevarra, they're traditionally at war. On the other hand a Blight is coming and if it's not beat back on Fereldan soil, Orlais is likely next in line.

Ostagar is a big pile of nonsense, according to people who claim to know a bit about medieval warfare. Cailan would have been with a small portion of the army in a defensible position (Cailan ordering them to charge the darkspawn and break the line is so stupid that it should be ignored, really, no one would do that), while the majority would have been with Loghain. Ordering the retreat after one or two hours easily makes Loghain look like a fool (or a traitor), considering that in such a setup Cailan's men should have been able to hold out for days(!).

If Loghain is really concerned about Orlais armies amassing at the borders (at Cailan's request, without trying to cross them), why exactly does he spark civil war? While the darkspawn are devastating the south? It's like he's determined to offer Ferelden to Orlais on a silver plate. *headdesk*

I'm trying to remember from The Stolen Throne how many chevaliers they had in Ferelden. I remember it mentioned some number of legions at one point. It seemed like it was 4-ish. Of course, there were probably unmounted troops too.

I wish I had the e-book so I could search it.

There aren't much in the way of concrete numbers in The Stolen Throne.

There were "hundreds" of chevaliers at an ambush that killed more than half of the Night Elves as well as many of the other rebels (and they never say how many are in the Night Elves).

The attack on Gwaren (just after the rebels take it) was a "full legion of chevaliers, with mages". The chevaliers were accompanied by regular infantry, and it makes it seem like there were more infantry than chevaliers. It doesn't give any actual numbers for chevaliers or infantry, and just says that three mages were killed.

The description of West Hill says the fortress was large enough to hold "thousands, whereas now it held hundreds" of soldiers. Maric had 400 men with him at West Hill, and Arl Rendorn had more.

The battle of River Dane was "nearly a thousand" rebels against "two legions" of chevaliers fresh from Orlais.

It also says that "over 5000 sovereigns" was believable pay for all of the chevaliers in Ferelden for a full year. It never says what the standard yearly pay for a chevalier is (or whether that money was also intended to pay the infantry that accompany the chevaliers).

This is some very helpful information, as I'm presently in a place in my writing where dissecting Loghain's mentality is very important, and these are good details to have. Thank you.

I think you're sticking to game canon, if I recall correctly, so you might not want to read this as it pulls together everything from the books and David Gaider's quotes about Loghain. I don't want to pollute your vision. I can appreciate a nicely villainous portrayal of Loghain, especially when there's sex involved.

I compiled everything I could about him when I started writing my current story. I just wanted to understand his motivations better, to see if I could justify my Warden siding with him at the Landsmeet and thereby prevent the civil war.

The Sympathetic (Sort of) Loghain.

He did some shitty stuff, yes, but he always had a reason why. I just had to try to figure out how much of it was pure paranoia and how much was justifiable.

I am sticking to game canon primarily, but there are plenty of gaps in game canon that I'm trying to fill in, or work within.

I find it interesting in your post there that Gaider contradicts himself, which kinda confirms for me a suspicion I have about these Q&As the writers do, which is that some of this stuff, they're making up on the fly. It's not a detail they thought through at the time of the actual writing, and they don't actually THINK it through until it's brought up as a question by a fan.

I've done the same thing, left a hole or unanswered question that doesn't become apparent until later in my writing or until someone asks me about it, and then I have to try to fill it in without messing up what I've already done. If I'm lucky, there's still time to do rewrites when necessary to make it all flow better, but that's not always the case.

I'm not sure that there are a huge number of discrepancies between game and book canon (other than who the stupid elf-baby is, if it's supposed to be Alistair...) But I do agree that a lot of the Q&As get kind of wacky.

Like, as you pointed out, if it the Q&A, Loghain knew about the plot to replace Anora with Celene, why is he so surprised at RtO? For all that, why is he so determined to get Cailan away from the front lines? It really doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you assume that even though there is a plot, that Loghain isn't in on it...

Yeah I pretty much agree with this. The biggest discrepancy that I recall is who Fiona's kid is *cough*ANDERS*cough* and there's some crazy with the timelines, but for the most part they're decently consistent with the game. Whereas the Q&A stuff is pretty dodgy.

I am still totally convinced that the elf-baby = Anders, no matter how often the GDs tell us otherwise. It makes so much sense! Why can everyone not see this? Why? Why!!!!

The biggest discrepancy that I recall is who Fiona's kid is *cough*ANDERS*cough*

I think that one's been pretty conclusively resolved--at least to the extent that if somehow Fiona's kid isn't Alistair, it's definitely not Anders. I honestly never got that one, because aside from a physical resemblance that's easily explained by model reuse, and some superficial similarities in personality, there's absolutely nothing to connect Anders to Maric.

I don't know shit about warfare, but the way I always figured Ostagar happened, was that you had Cailan's troops in the pass, Loghain's off to one side. The plan being to wait until the darkspawn were close enough to Cailan's troops and then sweep in from the side and cut them off from behind to catch the darkspawn in the pass between the two sections of the army.

But what happened was that there were a lot more darkspawn than anyone thought. The darkspawn and they didn't have enough soldiers. And the situation turned from "Hey, let's cut them off from behind" to "Holy shit, there's four times their number and they just keep coming. If we go down in there, we're going to be the ones that get sandwiched between their troops, cut off and slaughtered.

At least that's how I interpret it.

That's right. That's exactly how things are supposed to go and there are some hints that the writing is not plausible at that point.

If anything it could explain why Cailan didn't have to die, battle winnable or not.

If anything it could explain why Cailan didn't have to die, battle winnable or not.

But see, that's the thing. I don't get how in the scenario above, how Cailan could survive unless Loghian took his troops down into that meat grinder of a battle and got nearly everyone killed trying to save the King. Unless the King was smart enough to realize that they were all in danger of being overwhelmed and Loghain would be totally stupid to take his troops into that and sounded his own retreat out of the other side of the pass.

To me, it entirely justifies Loghain's decision to leave the field and jives with what he tells you if you talk to him later, that the choice was between getting the rest of the army killed and letting the King and the wardens die.

It seems like the guys at the bioboards seem to think that Cailan should have been able to hold that position for a long time. I would say that this is true if Cailan and the Grey Wardens had been fighting in close quarter formation like a Greek phalanx or Roman legions, with short swords and spears, heavy shields and everyone standing shoulder to shoulder and acting as one cohesive unit. But with the medieval fighting style of one on one fighting out in the open, with guys in large plate and broadswords, I don't think they could last more than an hour or two.

I understood that if Ferelden's army is worth its salt then they would have kept any kind of formation (not necessarily a phalanx), which they don't in the cutscene. In the game they immediately give up any advantage they might have had by charging the Darkspawn. Whatever the problem is it's not a matter of one hour.

I'm willing to believe that Cailan is immature and over-confident, but believe that he (obviously a fan of the Grey Wardens and a glory-hound) knows nothing at all about warfare while fighting on the frontlines?

But that's just my interpretation. I'm trying to rewrite Ostagar, so it's a very interesting topic for me. :)

I understood that if Ferelden's army is worth its salt then they would have kept any kind of formation (not necessarily a phalanx), which they don't in the cutscene. In the game they immediately give up any advantage they might have had by charging the Darkspawn. Whatever the problem is it's not a matter of one hour.

Sure. They should have kept some sort of formation. But who's the one who gives the signal to charge? Cailan. I mean, for all we know, they were supposed to stay in position but Cailan, who has already proven himself to be not the sharpest knife in the drawer, didn't think that would be glorious enough.

Plus you have to remember this isn't one giant homogeneous fighting force that's been training and fighting together for years. These are mostly a bunch of troops pulled from all over ferelden plus some grey wardens who aren't probably used to fighting darkspawn on this scale. So there's no guarantee they'd be able to work well enough together to defend that position for long.

I'm willing to believe that Cailan is immature and over-confident, but believe that he (obviously a fan of the Grey Wardens and a glory-hound) knows nothing at all about warfare while fighting on the frontlines?

See, I doubt this. For one thing, he's the King and it's very, very doubtful that he has a lot of battle experience on the front line. Also he's a fan of the Wardens, who aren't soldiers. I doubt that most of the time, the wardens fight darkspawn in a giant pitched battle on a scale like that.

Also, Cailan makes a lot of stupid decisions in the game such as not waiting for reinforcements that are coming, putting himself on the front lines when he has no clear successor and considering a marriage with Celene which would effectively hand his country over to Orlais. So I could totally believe that he's dumb enough to give the order to charge.

Ferelden could also have one of those cultures who says leaders of armies must fight in the frontlines, or he wouldn't be worth following, so we can't blame it all on Cailan being a featherbrained idiot. According to wikipedia, at least, leading from the back was a somewhat radical idea, and not in keeping with the warrior tradition. Yes, it's dumb to risk your best leaders and generals, but they wouldn't be worth following if they didn't show they had courage and valor.

But, yes, he was dumb for not waiting for reinforcements, like taking up Eamon's offer of troops.

I see what you're saying, but Ferelden doesn't seem like one of those cultures, and Cailan strikes me as a very, very shelterd man. Ferelden seems to be much more of leadership due to bloodlines where the ruling class uses that as a justification for keeping their power rather than showing skill through strength and accomplishments. This is why people like Loghain and Anora have such a hard time and are in such precarious positions I think. If it were a society baised on following people with skill, it would be a much different situation for them (especially Anora).

I see what you're saying, but Ferelden doesn't seem like one of those cultures, and Cailan strikes me as a very, very shelterd man. Ferelden seems to be much more of leadership due to bloodlines where the ruling class uses that as a justification for keeping their power rather than showing skill through strength and accomplishments.

Actually, you've got it entirely backward:

From the table-top RPG Player's Guide:

However, in Ferelden,
unlike nearly all other countries in Thedas,
members of the nobility are not considered to
be intrinsically better or afforded more rights
than any other class; they just have different
ones. It is true that nobles are generally
treated with deference, but this is often due
more to the (correct) assumption of martial
ability than social status. Nobles from other
lands frequently find Ferelden commoners to
be phenomenally insolent in comparison to the
fawning treatment that they are used to.
The primary purpose of the nobility of Ferelden
is to fight for their people against all threats—
human, darkspawn, or otherwise. While nearly
all Fereldans boast some level of martial ability,
nobles are expected to excel at warfare—it
is, literally, their “job.”

It says on the wiki that the king is actually the Teyrn of Ferelden, so this rule definitely applies to the king as well. The king is expected to fight alongside his people. That Loghain and Eamon both didn't want him to do so could likely be a statement of their assessment of Cailan's skills as a warrior, rather than an inherent mentality of "protect the king."

Since the Landsmeet is perfectly willing to keep Anora on as queen, or they accept Alistair only because the Warden who has already won them over vouches for him, or they let the Warden promote him or herself to the throne alongside Anora or Alistair once the Warden has gained their approval, I think it's pretty clear that the Landsmeet IS thinking in terms of capable leadership, rather than bloodlines.

In fact, no matter how persuasive you are, ultimately the Landsmeet only follows you if you defeat Loghain in a fight.

The argument can definitely be made that with his insistence on supporting the Theirin bloodline, Arl Eamon is veering away from this tradition, but this may also be attributed to the fact that Eamon has a blood connection to Cailan and a connection via fosterage to Alistair and therefore it's in Eamon's interest to keep the Theirin dynasty in power. Plus, there's the fact that he believes Loghain has gone mad.

The argument could also be made, though not very strongly, that Ferelden society is trending away from this, considering some of the rumors you can get from Bodhan Feddic or the innkeepers deal with Loghain and Anora's commoner roots being an issue. But on the whole, the "they're looked down on because they're commoners" facet is a bit overblown in fannon and doesn't really address Ferelden culture as its established canonically.

Edited 2010-11-24 18:37 (UTC)

But on the whole, the "they're looked down on because they're commoners" facet is a bit overblown in fannon and doesn't really address Ferelden culture as its established canonically.

I disagree that it's overblown. The only argument any NPC in the actual game makes against Anora being Queen is her bloodline. That's it. They're going to yank her job and crown away from her, even though they admit she's good at what she does, soley because of her commoner roots. To me, that's the ultimate in looking down on someone because she's a commoner. Since it comes from the actions and dialogue in the game, that's as canonnical as it gets.

The primary purpose of the nobility of Ferelden is to fight for their people against all threats—human, darkspawn, or otherwise. While nearly all Fereldans boast some level of martial ability,nobles are expected to excel at warfare—it
is, literally, their “job.”

Sure. This is probably exactly what the nobility tells itself in order to legitimize and justify their oppressive class structure and limiting opportunities for people born below their priviledged station as well as justifying their taxes and revenues on the commoners to support their fighters.

That Loghain and Eamon both didn't want him to do so could likely be a statement of their assessment of Cailan's skills as a warrior, rather than an inherent mentality of "protect the king."

That's a fair point. Cailan may have very well sucked as a fighter or had been so shelterd that he wasn't fit for the front lines. It's also possible that they're just freaked out about sucession and the chaos his death might cause (which is entirely possible due to being in a giant pitched battle, even if everything went the way it was supposed to) since no heir has been produced. Or even a combination of both.

The only argument any NPC in the actual game makes against Anora being Queen is her bloodline. That's it. They're going to yank her job and crown away from her, even though they admit she's good at what she does, soley because of her commoner roots. To me, that's the ultimate in looking down on someone because she's a commoner. Since it comes from the actions and dialogue in the game, that's as canonnical as it gets.

That's what Eamon says, but Eamon isn't the Landsmeet. Clearly the Landsmeet is still willing to follow her. Aside from Eamon and whomever you happen to be asking for rumors, who disses on Anora for being a commoner?

Sure. This is probably exactly what the nobility tells itself in order to legitimize and justify their oppressive class structure and limiting opportunities for people born below their priviledged station as well as justifying their taxes and revenues on the commoners to support their fighters.

Where exactly is this claim coming from?

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