Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Any Lae'zel fans here? Her story is great (spoilers)

I wouldn't call myself a fan. Yet, the idea of a companion who doesn't *do* liking, but can come to respect the MC, is interesting. I would say the execution worked.

I didn't even realize there was drama about people hating Lae'zel. I don't think I ever saw it on the forum or the subreddit (much as I detest that place). She's a neat character. Not necessarily my favorite, but her story and arc is definitely one of the best. I think the writers had a very clear idea for her and ran with it, and it paid off.

Lae'zel is a thorny, complicated character to understand, yet when you look past the barbarity and militarism, you can see she legitimately cares about Tav and the party.

She doesn't just ditch you and rejoin her people at the crèche. She seeks for the whole party to receive what she believes is appropriate medical care.

And then, she is willing to give you the benefit of the doubt about the medical machine and the Guardian, to the extent that it makes her an enemy to her own people. She continues to be just reasonable enough that you can eventually convince her that her revered queen is an unjust abuser.

It's a remarkable shift in perspective, all while staying true to her core principles.

What's great as well is that they don't "break" Lae'zel's character to show her change. She remains thorny and complicated, but has opportunity to re-contextualize her situation.

No, I absolutely agree with you. As I said before, Lae’zel was one of my favourite companions in EA and I was very much looking forward to see how her character would develop. I have nothing against her being thick headed and then slowly becoming less indoctrinated, wiser and more open minded as she realizes that Vlaakith lies to her.

My issue is not with the character herself but the inconsistency of how she is written. In one second she is Vlaakith’s most loyal servant, in the next she is her worse enemy and there is hardly any exploration of how she got from A to B. Yes, the in game story is there, she has plenty of reason to turn on Vlaakith, but according to her own text she is still in denial.

I thought she would be the typical “defrosting ice queen” character, who gradually softens up and we can discover her depths. I think this was probably at least part of the idea behind her character, but she became pretty one tone only, with an occasional face-heel turn added.

Also, can we really separate the character from her story? You could say I am upset because “she stole the show from my Tav”, and this is basically true. But I am also upset because despite her dreams “being good dreams for a githyanki”, she gets unrealistic rewards for her actions even compared to other Origin characters. She goes from nobody to war hero in Act 3 in seconds. Again, this is the issue with writing. Sure, she can have the sword and the dragon and what not as long as she actually becomes an essential part of that plotline. However she is not written as one, as the game allows us to play the whole plotline with her sitting in camp while we do all the work.
Honestly, if I wanted to be bullied all day, ignored by my peers and see others being rewarded for my hard work I could just spend my free time at work irl instead of playing a computer game. It is a realistic situation, just not a good one.

Lae'zel is my favorite character in this game. BG3 pretty much is the Lae'zel game, I mean from the intro movie and the whole hook of it, she's solid.

That said I also found that playing a Gith and having her in the party didn't provide the amount of interaction I thought it would. Main issue is that Lae'zel is set up as delivery mechanism for the Gith lore, but she doesn't have responses where it's just sort of assumed that because the PC is also Gith that they'd just get what she was saying. You know to follow her lead in terms of the talking point questions and dialogue branches. I sorta figured you'd have two angles as a fellow Gith, one more competitive and adversarial that results in romance, another more amicable but business professional, like keeping it strictly by the book or Creche or whatever. I agree that during the Creche sequences she steals the thunder from a Gith protagonist, since much of the story is then directed at her or elaborated on via interjections. Being called Kin more often or things of that sort, whereas I actually found that Shadowheart, Gale, Wyll and the other non-Gith characters seemed to have more Gith-centric conversation options for me than did Lae'zel.

My character was a Monk standard loadout using voice 4 and the default female avatar which felt like an iconic look. Monk seemed a natural fit to complement Lae'zel's strengths and it's been pretty fun. Like once I saw act 2 I was pretty much sold on that whole idea haha. So far I've been able to get all the same content basically with Lae'zel including the camp and flirt romance stuff, but I had kinda hoped it would be more expansive in the lay up. To me something sensible would have been an extra few dialog prompts upon first meeting Lae'zel and few consultation type convos for anything specifically Gith oriented, where we can sorta push pull vs Lae'zel.

I did think it was fun to have her in the party as a counter weight, where I could play the more even keel but I still tried to play it the way I thought a Githyanki might. So like of course when we see our Compatriot trapped in a cage and some devils with bows at the ready, after we've just been fighting devils for the past hour, it made perfect sense to aim a bolt at the latch to her cage before they even got a word in edgewise. Later with Zorru I didn't feel the need to humiliate him as much, even though Lae'zel was obviously just toying with him, but whatever, again these devils and shapechangers aren't the top priority right now for me either. I think early astral prism reveals might also lean a bit more on the fact that we'd recognize the design, or perhaps if our wisdom or arcana is high enough we can call out Lae'zel on some of her lore, and be all extra pedantic about some things. Vlaakith and Voss both need to pay a bit more attention to the fact that we're there. Or I don't know, if we're going to be like a member of Lae'zel's body guard cause she's the bigger deal, then we probably need a reason to get into that. Good hook might be that in one of her early dreams she sees us Ascending together and we do like a Gith blood oath that sorta sets the stage. Like where we leech off her chosen origin angle and maybe she actually trains us up in our Gith ability, so that it makes more sense when Vlaakith says that stuff, since we're lvl 1 and all and sort of mind wiped from whatever just happened on the nautiloid.

One thing I would love is that when Lae'zel first see us and realizes we're not a thrall, if we are Githyanki, then she should hand us a blade and maybe a set of robes that looks more Gith style. This way Gith monks, Wizards, Barbarians etc can have some decent duds. Martials and all the rest should get some entry level Gith light armor perhaps.

Here is an image from early on like right at the Grove. Even trying to find esoteric dyes that were yellow as a toad or orange for flare from Mattis, but she doesn't quite have the same flare that Lae'zel has going with her garb ya know...



You can see how Lae'zel is dressed for success, whereas Tav'al looks like any regular monk from the material plane hehe. I mean she made it work, but it's the little touches. Would have been nice to make a grab on the Nautiloid where it fits with the scene and the set up.



This is where it's at it's best, when we have multiple Gith response options.



Also if we are a Class that might be less obvious for a Gith archetype, like say a Paladin or Cleric, Lae'zel might deliver a dialogue prompt that gives a hook on that too. Or even just saying some untranslated stuff in Githyanki, but where it's signaled to the player and sorta understood with nods that you have more of an insider thing going on there. Githyanki have a more defined sort of look to them that doesn't feel as clean when they're just wearing the regular Faerun starting garb. Having a dead body in the prologue that had some Gith looking robes on it would have be cool, but it could be fun I think if this was all just part of that initial interaction with Lae'zel.

They do have to kind of gloss over githyanki is the space racist faction bent on enslaving everyone and it would have been unrealistic to have Laezel change too far

Sorry if this has already been shared but I haven't seen so I wanted to sent the very funny tik tok from Lae'zel's voice actor where she responds to fan criticisms of her character:

https://www.tiktok.com/@thisisdevo/video/7269801962894265632

Black_Elk: I love your Githyanki

I really like Lae'zel. The moment I saw her in EA I was like "yeah absolutely plausible background and related thoughts and actions".

Personally my favorite moment with her was

I guess she is perceveied as a more "evil character" and another guess is that many players don't like gythyanki in general...

To be fair, most githyanki are evil, and Vlaakith is definitely evil. Lae'zel isn't inherently evil, but one can hardly fault people for making the assumption that a Vlaakith-worshipping githyanki is evil.

Yes, you are right. Lae'zel reminds me of Viconia in bg2... Back in the days it was so hard to believe that a drow is not completely evil.

haha I love that, great tik!

Right on, thanks Fylimar!

Here's cousin Tav'itha... she's still stuck on the Nautiloid



She got super into the Craft in her last semester before the creche exchange exit exams. Like just off the deep end, taboo stuff like the Eurydice mysteries, astral mushrooms, and sentient crystal seances. But also mean Gith lip gloss hehe.

oh and cousin Tav'alerie, her not quite as evil twin lol



Extra-planar tardigrade is more her speed (the big fuzzy one that looks like it has too few legs). Who knows why cousin Tav'alerie would have chosen such a quixotic path, they're both from the same hatchpod but different side of the pool. Gith Druids face a similar issue with their starting duds though, cause everyone knows that out past the Tears of Selune most of the plants are purple. But we'll take it as a sign. The druid robes aren't too terribly off the style. Maybe Mattis has got a dye lol. All the Gith look pretty boss in red hehe

ps. Just hit the beaches. Took a level up in bard cause it felt right...


Works well with the chaos robes, full diva. Light em up! lol

It's official folks. Lae'zel and I are now an item. We had the fight and my bruises captured her heart.

I just had a right laugh - poor Lae'zel.

This is a minor fight in Act 2.

I personally do not like her or Wyll. She's an arrogant ass, and Wyll's "for the people" self-aggrandisement gets old very quickly. I take Lae'zel because despite being an ass, she's a good fighter; Wyll, however rarely hits anything with either spell or rapier, so coupled with this and his "i'm a hero" self-promotion, means he stays in the camp.

Lae'zel's turnaround on Vlaakith is completely explained with the realization of what she is...this one was obvious.

Lae'zel and Shadowheart wound up being my favorite stories and key parts of my group. Unlike many it seems, I really like the Cleric class.

Same! Top fav!!!

I've done like half a dozen runs now, and somehow every time it's Bae'zel! Even when I didn't plan for it!

Go figure lol









She's a Gem! Like with the Holograms and everything! heheh

I really like her story arc - plus the way her relationship with you develops - there's no side to her she says what she means so no second guessing. It also helps she's super cute too.

Yup. I really like Lae'zel. Apparently I like complicated non standard non goody two shoes characters. My first choice team for doing just about anything in the game (that doesn't require a specific character to be there for more interactions) is always Astarion, Lae'zel and Shadowheart in every playthrough I've done.
Gale gets left in his portal. Wyll gets left in camp. The rest I trot out for specific things but those 3 are my dream team.