New Comic, Dragon Age: Deception

It wasn’t really important for a combatant to be the one to stay behind - all they needed was for someone to distract the Qunari for a few seconds while the others made a break for it. In fact, if they had left Ser Aaron, they probably wouldn’t have made it out of the city.

IMO, Olivia’s death wasn’t really meant to “redeem” her. They were just in a bad situation and someone needed to die to get out of it. This was more of a “passing the torch” thing for Calix, who takes her name at the end of the story.

Why do you say that? If they just needed someone to distract the Qunari long enough for the others to escape then someone who can actually fight back would've surely been a better distraction? He could also have pretended to be a mage just long enough the have their undivided attention. 

Ser Aaron said: "Perhaps I pushed her to be just heroic enough to die." So it felt like a redemption for a morally grey character even though in my opinion she didn't need to die to prove that she's a good person. Isn't the fact she didn't sell the item she stole from ser Aaron proof enough?

Ser Aaron's task was to get everyone out safely. The city was under attack and he was the best fighter in the group. While Autumn can fight, she hasn't done it as much as he has. And Francesca was hurt and no one (not even her) knew how useful she would be in combat at that stage. If Ser Aaron had stayed to serve as the distraction, he wouldn't be there to get the others out.

Plus, the Qunari were looking for Magister Qintara. Which means they needed someone who looked the part, or else they might not have ALL gone after the target (or even most of them). That ruled out most of the others. No one would buy Ser Aaron as a mage, Vaea's an elf and also doesn't look much like a mage, Francesca and Calix were too young, and Autumn, well... that one probably doesn't need explaining.

If there were more time, other solutions could have probably been devised. But they didn't have much time, and the woman posing as a magister deciding to pose as a different one was the solution that would get all or most of the Qunari in the building to commit long enough for the others to get out, and leave them defended if it didn't work so well or when they got outside.

That was the logic in the moment.

I guess that makes sense. I just felt like it was a bit inconsistent for him to not even try to save Olivia when he had said more than once that he wants to save everyone (and then in Blue Wraith he refuses to abandon his horse so there's that hero complex again). In the case of Olivia he seemed to value his mission and the greater good over one person's life but then in almost every other time he seems to value the well being of those he cares about above all.