Fair points, I agree neither Loghain nor Cailan were capable enough to lead Ferelden on their own. But Anora, while admittedly being somewhat heart-less at times, would have made a decent Queen on her own. She wouldn't have captured the hearts of the people, but would have had enough political know-how that she wouldn't necessarily need it.

I should point out that I haven't played the game properly in a little while so if I'm missing a big piece of evidence then please point it out.

"Saving content. Do not turn off your system." FFS!! Every time I walk somewhere the game pauses for 5 seconds and then I have to endure a bloody great 'saving content' logo filling up the screen. It's getting annoying

You can turn it off. But yeah, it is annoying.

Oh there is no doubt she would be a good queen for herself and Ferelden. It's just the people who would suffer under such a strict tyrant. Look at how she handled Alister. Can you say "off to the gallows" for even the most petty offense?

Elven alienages = ghettos + regular purges to keep the population "in check".

At least King Alistair alievates their condition... and even

I actually like how DA makes elves the biggest losers in existence.

Eh, what she did was really no different than what the rest of the world has been treating the Elves. The Antivans and Orlesians keep them around as "personal servants" to be used however they like. The Tevinter use them as slaves and fodder for their Blood Magic rituals. And the Qunari just slaughter the lot of them. No matter where they are, Elves are always on the bottom rung, considered no better than animals and commodities to be used and abused. As sad as their condition is, Fereldan could potentially benefit from her rule (in one ending, ). The Elves are just too minor a population for a monarch to give any focus on, no one gives a damn about them, and Anora, as someone who's always looking at the bigger picture (or so she says) never has a reason to be sympathetic to their plight.

Still hate her guts. And her daddy's. . :chaos:

My preferred ending as well,

I think she and Cailan together probably made a decent ruling pair - no worse than some historical precendents in our own world history. Alone, I think she would also generally be fine - she's smart and ambitious and *wants* the job, and tries to rule, as opposed to just inheriting the role and going about it half-assedly, or leaving decisions up to others. She's just so... annoying. Loghain as a ruler is too narrow, to set in his ways, too tied to his past - his concept of ruling is "No outsiders, and my-way-or-the-highway" basically - usually not a hallmark of your more forward-thinking rulers. I think that

I thought Anora would be the worst ruler out of all of them. Mainly because she wanted the power, and thus is the one most likely to abuse that power. Not to mention she is ruthless and wouldn't know what mercy was if someone wrote a book on it, and then slapped her in the face with it. Sure she would see herself and Ferelden prosper, at the cost of Ferelden. :rolleyes:

I must say, at least my Dalish Elf got a very good deal in the ending with Anora. I imagine it would be the same for my City Elf. So at least she's true to her word.

I actually think she would be the best in the aspect of getting things done. She may like power, but that doesn't mean she would be a tyrant or anything.

Disagree completely. Anora panics and turns on you immediately in the prison rescue, no concept of fighting it out, trust in her own power (you and your colleagues are a match for the forces arraigned against you). She would have been an extremely weak queen if she did this at the first sign of danger. Given her complete lack of military tactics she would have been a hopelessly undermined ruler, at the mercy of generals, or destructive as she executed and disgraced one after the other. In that time and place, you need not only a clever woman in power, but one who can lead on the battlefield too. Plenty in Ferelden can do that, but not Anora.

Pffft. You can't fool us - we know you are proudly wearing your Anora Fan Club badge and tee-shirt.

I think that's just another case of dubious BioWare writing.

Right, because executing Alister for no good reason as soon as your made ruler is an oh so fair and smart thing to do. :rolleyes:

Then her complete lack of ability to lead on the battlefield is even worse! No one can scheme perfectly forever, she is eventually going to mess up and be unable to stop what threats might appear. Not to mention she betrays people for a dime practically. I wouldn't be surprised that through all of her sneaky double dealings and political know how get her a ton of enemies to conspire against her. She has no one to balance out her sneaky tendencies and put her on an honest path.

Honestly, it's the dishonest ones you can honestly trust to be dishonest. In the short term she would be incredibly effective, but as people learn to deal with her the chances of them all conspiring to take her down grows. Even worse since she treats people like dirt she doesn't have a lot of loyal people willing to save her. Just making it even easier for someone to kill her.

She may seem like the most skillful at ruling, but that is just on a brief glance. She has no... compassion or sense of civic duty. It's all about her, and her ability to be politically savvy. She doesn't seem the type to give a crap about people, and she is surprised Alister let her live when she wouldn't. Like I said, ultimately flawed. We have nothing but evidence to show she is a ruthless ice queen [censored] who would probably sell out some of Ferelden to get herself ahead.

Ultimately like I said all three leaders were flawed, and even when Anora and Cailan were together they were STILL flawed in the fact that taking out either one would bring down their rule around them. There was no single strong leader possessing all of the skills necessary to be a truly great and exemplar of a King or Queen. At least not in this game, and even Alister still falls short. Although that's the angle they were going for though. No one is perfect and all that. It would be neat to see a character that does have all the good qualities of a King though.

Isn't that kind of the point? It's unrealistic to expect there to be some leader that has all these great qualities. Look throughout our own history and you'll see that everyone has their flaws. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alp_Arslan was proud, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napolean was too ambitious, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill could hardly lead in peace time, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis was completely and utterly ruthless. In fact, Alistair exhibits the best, most genuine trait a leader can have: he doesn't want to be a leader.

I won't get that much into it, since they aren't developed enough to be anolyzed so much. Also, they aren't real. But I am one who sits in a gray area throughout most of my life. :shrug:

Oh I know it is a horrible thing to expect a perfect leader. No, but those three particular qualities out of dozens are the most important. There have been plenty of leaders with those three particular qualities, but other flaws that are not quite so bad. I will agree Alister is probably the best choice because he doesn't want to rule.

Edit
Compassion, Justice, and Intelligence.

I have a tech support question. I bought and downloaded "Return to Ostagar" today, but I'm getting a prompt that says my game isn't up to date and so I can't run RTO. I bought Dragon Age as a DVD-ROM in November, so it's not what I'd consider old. What are my options for updating the game enough so that I can play RTO? (I downloaded the first patch for the game tonight, but that doesn't seem related.)

http://social.bioware.com/page/da-patches

She's already got a solid track record of being a competent ruler. It's stated numerous times that she's the real ruler and Cailan was just prancing about like a child playing soldier for the entirety of his five year "reign."

A competent ruler with Cailan making nice with the people of Ferelden. Most people in the game said they liked Cailan, but were more hesitant to say Anora was "loved" by the people. Implying she might not have had such a good reign if Cailan were not there to make nice with the people. So she can run a country effectively. Sometimes that's not enough. The people need to see and like you, and she was decidedly less than stellar in that department.

Cailan was hardly roaming about the countryside righting wrongs and saving innocents, he didn't have a clue about heinous things that were going on right under his nose in the alleys of Denerim and the Alienage, there's no implication anywhere in the game that he was some kind of well-travelled diplomat or whatever it is you're implying. He was "loved" because of his father's reputation and because he was part of Ferelden's founding royal bloodline, not because of his own actions.

This. His naivete and ignorance are the most clear and driven points.

Thanks for adding to my argument Cailan also svcks. Also I should clarify. By "making nice" I am referring to the fact people thought of him as a hero. That and he was generally well liked. I don't think I ever stated that he ever had a [censored] clue what was going on.