Part of the issue with my initial efforts with Cauthrien were that I always felt sort of ‘on the defensive’ about Loghain as a character and Cauthrien as an adult woman. There was a lot of assumption that Loghain was irredeemable and handwringingly evil etc, as well as an assumption that Cauthrien was completely helpless against his whims. So I felt it wouldn’t be productive to delve into Cauthrien and Loghain’s issues. Like the mere discussion of power imbalances always seemed to cascade into a very simple ‘Loghain tricked Cauthrien into trusting him and she never had any agency and was also a baby somehow’. Which was so antithetical to my portrayal that I didn’t want to encourage the notion.
But!! Cauthrien and Loghain DID have issues within their relationship that were not addressed! Loghain allowed her too much free reign, for one. In reality, Cauthrien changed his mind, made him a far more ‘ends justify the means’ kind of man. Because their friendship was a place of mutual understanding and comfort, but it also became an echo chamber for their extreme ideas and concerns. And it didn’t help that they were never precisely wrong about the facts that founded their worldviews. But in the end, in talking to them both, Cauthrien is the one who says ‘what else were we supposed to do?’ whereas Loghain does admit he was blinded. Loghain is actually the more moderate minded of the two.
But here is where the power imbalance actually arrives. Because Loghain was comforted by Cauthrien’s constant vigilance and focus. He had a family, he lived a life, and benefitted from Cauthrien rejecting such grounding things for herself. He benefitted from her world and family being so tied to the military and he benefitted from the actions she took under his blanket mandate without really having to bear the brunt of the knowledge of what those actions were. But he still encouraged these actions in her, be it unconsciously or not. There is a universe where Cauthrien actually comes to the conclusion that they had been misled and the hardest part to come to terms with is that Loghain had used her, in a way, used her history and convictions. And it galls her more than she wants to admit that crimes she feels massive guilt for now are things Loghain would have condemned long before the blight, but by keeping a token distance from them he still had praised her for it at the time.
