Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Eilistraee

In the lore, males can participate in the dances, and many dances are communal, yet Smedman--author of Lady Penitent--had a rule where males could be effing mutilated for daring to watch a dance. Even more importantly, males are welcomed and given acceptance and the support they need to find their happiness, like everyone else (there are even bits of lore that explicitly tell you that males are treated the same as females, even in articles published to supplement the WotSQ series), yet Smedman had all priestesses being abusive to any and all males. Especially Ryld, who was made to feel like "he had no place" (seriously, that's the exact opposite of what Eilistraee is all about), when he would have been welcomed and cared for, had this been true-to-character. Or Q'arlynd, a refugee who had lost everything, met with a crass and totally uncompassionate attitude by Eilistraee's priestess, and forced to swear loyalty or somesuch before being sheltered (contrary to what Eilistraee's lore says). Overall, the generally matriarchal society of the Eilistraeans, meant to paint a more positive picture of a society with women in power and taking care of their people (againt Lolth's "women in power=crap"), was distorted into a Lolth knockoff.

In the lore, Eilistraeans welcome people who struggle, who feel like outcasts, who have need of a place in the world. Smedman had them kill lycanthropes indiscriminately and for no reason, and the make some macabre trophy trees out of them worthy of Malarites, in the very region where the Eilistraeens are explicitly stated to befriend Selune-worshipping lycanthropes (Velarswood). The book heavily implies that bthey would have killed a friggin' kid, if not for Ryld. This leans towards sadism, and is typical of the Lolthites.

In the lore, Eilistraeens heal the wounded, all of them, and feed the hungry, because it's the right thing to do. Smedman had priestesses engage in friggin' dictation of faith by demanding that people convert to their religion before healing them--in the very region where it's stated that one of the main jobs of the priestesses is heal the wounded and shelter people who come there. Not only that, Qilué herself is seen friggin' exploiting a half-orc boy that they had sheltered by sending him on a suicide mission. Wtf?

The lore says that Eilistraeans have a very loose hierarchy, as they all stand on the same ground, and even Qilué is seen as a big sister (see Faiths&Pantheons). They're also a free-form faith, as they value freedom of expression. Meanwhile Smedman makes it all about hierarchy and dogmatic approaches and heavy coded rituals--typical of Lolth. Which leads to the next two points.

Eilistraeans are obviously all for building a new future for all drow and offering second chances. They're strong on compassion and redemption. Nope, Smedman has them friggin' execute a large group of defenseless drow, with no significant opposition to the order that was given to them.

When her church was joined by some Vhaeraunites (most of the didn't join), Eilistraee's priestesses mistreated them by often engaging in abuse, bullying, and even sabotage in important missions (like withholding passwords or info). Internal strife typical of Lolth.

Finally, as I mentioned before, Eilistraee is a goddess whose M.O. is explicitly stated in various sources, like Demihuman Deities, to be that of an empowerer--never forcing a choice on her people, but enabling them to find their own path and fulfill themselves (Elaine Cunningham also shows this very well in her Starlights&Shadows). She also teaches the drow that they matter as individuals, and teaches them acceptance and self-acceptance. Instead, Smedman does this (MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW):

1)Has Eilistraee literally using her people as expendable chess pawns, uncaring of their misery and agency, in a ploy to overthrow Lolth. Eilistraee was generally portrayed as massively disregarding the feelings and safety of her people--not to mention their success. This started in WotSQ, with a--let's be honest here--idiotically conceived crusade that sent 2 random low-mid level priestesses and an equally random "chosen one" with a sword to the friggin' Demonwebs, and continued in LP with the chess game, or when we even see Qilué breaking in tears when she found out that her death was part of Eilistraee's plan (which we then learn boiled down to race-changing a handful of drow so daddy would be pleased--and she wanted to kill her "beloved" chosen for that), because she had given so much to build the faith, and now she couldn't even see it flourish (and the irony is that we can't even really feel bad for Qilué, because she had done the same with that half-orc boy). Wtf is this cruelty (and utter incompetence)? This is antithetical to Eilistraee, and far closer to Lolth.

2)Smedman associates Eilistraee with a forced physical change rained on her people as "salvation" and a "reward" for their goodness (a change into lighter skin tone race on top of that, because goodness is but a shade lighter!). Smedman associates Eilistraee with a toxic idea of "redemption" as "redeem for being drow" and with the violence of a forced race-change inflicted on her people, just so that Corellon (the very dude who cursed the drow and made them what they are) would accept their race-changed version--since they were not worthy of being accepted like they were, with the bodies they were born with, and for the choices they made, apparently. They had to be "purified" for good-guy Corellon to be happy with them.

Smedman even comes to the point of stating that this was the plan all along (while Eilistraee, in over 12k years never did anything related to this, never even talked about it--she did the opposite, becoming drow herself), and that to Eilistraee&Corellon the rest of the drow (all of them, basically, since only a few hundreds were transformed) were instead "unwilling and to be cast down". All of this is associated to a goddess who has always given her all to reach to all drow, and who willingly gavce up on the luxury and comfort of Arvandor and embraced a path that she knew would be filled with hardships, to stay with all of them. Before you tell me that this was a "lifted curse", that's not the case. The few hundreds who were transformed had always been drow, drow was what they were, and that's one reason why Eilistraee herself chose to be drow to stay with them. Smedman doesn't shy from doing what comes close to mockery by showing us only transformed ones that were either horrified by it, or simply didn't give a f**k about it, reinforcing the idea that all of this thing that she presented as Eilistraee's ultimate goal was actually useless and/or harmful.

This is defeating of the very core of Eilistraee's character, and is just a gross concept. No wonder WotC pretends this stuff has never been written--thankfully.