Okay, I found the article. They seem flippant and casual in discussing Karlach’s endings, which isn’t considerate of her fans. But after playing the game for as many hours as I have, I’m not surprised at this point that they intended for her ending to either be turning into a mindflayer or exploding to death.
Most of the companions are incredibly emotionally traumatized and have DEEPLY unsettling stories. And I don’t think that any of them has a strictly happy ending, and that that was by design. When I completed Shadowheart’s quest, for example, I was EXTREMELY disturbed by everything that I learned, down to the awful details. It left me feeling a bit shocked for the rest of the day. Everyone’s story is disturbing and can lead you into vague feelings of traumatization by association if you get invested enough in the character. With Karlach, same deal, just with a more underdeveloped storyline.
I do absolutely adore this game and I spend a lot of time playing it. But it would be difficult to deny that it’s emotionally manipulative at times. Just consider how so many people loved Alfira, and wanted her as a bard companion. And then they created that scene where she shows up, asking to be your companion, and the next morning you find her brutally murdered by yourself as Dark Urge, if you’re playing as the Dark Urge. So they give you a little taste of hope in that case, and then jerk it away for shock value.
Perhaps in the same way, they get you so attached to Karlach and her plight, just to jerk hope away for shock value. It reminds me of what maybe Astarion says about the nature of mental/emotional torture? You leave them feeling like there’s hope up until the very last minute. Then yank it away. I think that’s what he said his master Cazador had the tendency to do.
Not to say that the writers are intentionally inflicting emotional torment or something, LOL. I’m not quite that dramatic! But the idea IS in the game, that you dangle hope for as long as possible, and then jerk it away as a form of emotional manipulation exercised by one of the antagonists.
It’s actually a really dark game in many ways. (DOS2, their previous game, was very dark as well, although I did think that several of the protagonists had unambiguously good endings.) And there actually are a very limited range of endings, to be honest. I think that the flexibility of the endings was greatly exaggerated. Which, I’m okay with, because it is what it is. It’s good that they made an epilogue to smooth the bitterness over of so many of the companions’ stories.
