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When you talk about top video game betrayals, the opening of Dragon Age: Origins will probably come to mind. The forces of Fereldan, positioned to defend the lands of Thedas from the oncoming darkspawn threat, are undone not by the enemy armies but by one of their own. Lord Loghain dramatically pulls his forces out of the battle at Ostagar just before the battle lines meet and, in doing so, seemingly dooms King Cailan and the Fereldan forces.

Except that he actually did the right thing. At least, according to David Gaider, the lead writer for Dragon Age: Origins and the creator of the Thedas setting where the Dragon Age games take place. Though Dragon Age: Origins came out nearly 20 years ago, Gaider is still asked about this particular moment from the series. In his mind, Loghain did exactly what needed to be done, even if it wasn’t very nice.

“No, he was correct,” Gaider said in a social media post. “They were definitely going to lose. Just perhaps not as definitively as they did. Yet his retreat saved a bunch of Fereldan’s forces which, otherwise, likely would have been decimated.”

It doesn’t exactly absolve Loghain of his other crimes in Dragon Age, like putting a bounty on the heads of the Grey Wardens and leaving huge chunks of Fereldan to be overrun with darkspawn. However, his initial choice to leave King Cailan to his fate, which Loghain tried to talk him out of repeatedly, likely saved the world in the end.

So he’s still a bad guy. Just maybe not quite as bad as we think he is.

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