mehofkirkwall:

No, but you’re telling me that Orsino couldn’t find some way to get more mages out of the Gallows? Or just the final battle as Meredith was going to Annul the Gallows?
That, on the way back with Hawke on their side, that he didn’t grab onto who he could and push them into empty houses and shout orders for them to trade their robes for normal clothes so the guards would take them for civilians and evacuate them? That he didn’t defend those near alleys with locks he could break and shuffle groups through and tell them to run out of the city and keep going– to not stop until they couldn’t see Kirkwall over their shoulders– and then raising a wall of earth over the gate so Templars could not follow? That he didn’t herd weeping apprentices toward the Alienage, in chaos as it was, his contacts shaken but willing, and hoped that they’d be safe with his fellows? That he took the strongest of his enchaters with him and sent the others to round up those still in the city and find the people that couldn’t defend themselves, round them up and get them on bouts out of the Gallows? 

You mean to tell me he didn’t know, deep inside himself, that even if the Champion took his side, even if they went and they fought, even if he fell back to the Gallows and stood– that they would all be marked? You mean to tell me that he wanted his people, the people he suffered and worked for years for, to return to the Gallows when he knew they would be killed either way?

I think Varric didn’t know. I think Varric didn’t know, because he didn’t see. He didn’t see Orsino arriving ahead of time and loading children and the elderly into boats and sending them away. Trying with the fire of fighting at his back, knowing what was coming, to keep them safe. Varric didn’t see Orsino knowingly dwindling their numbers so more would live, because they had already lost enough in the streets to Meredith. To their own hands. To despair. 
To Templars that were drunk on their power forcing the issue.

I will never, though, never believe that Orsino became what Varric tells Cassandra he does. Orsino is a rational, clever, logical and very protective man. He stands with his people and, were he winning against Meredith’s people– nothing would stop him from continuing that push to finish the fight and get the rest out. Especially so if the Champion is on his side.
There is one thing more that convinces me of this.

Varric lies. He lies to many people– especially to people he doesn’t like and Cassandra is not high up on his approval list. 

Orsino would not have abandoned his people like that, damnit.