Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Fan club of Minthara

This. I would prefer to get rid of this entirely, but if it must exist (which it probably will since people seem to be obsessed with it) then there also should be a way to turn other characters to evil.

I have a sad feeling a game that had this would make it be a Drizzt clone or have some forced redemption crap for anything to progress.

I dunno. The idea of killing your allies rather than paying them a compliment seems a bit stupid, doesn't it? Is that what being "evil" means to you? Stabbing people just because it's the evil thing to do? That's the definition of "stupid evil".

In D&D lore: "good" means collectivist/selflessness, "evil" means individualist/selfishness, "lawful" means honest/honourable and "chaotic" means dishonest/dishonourable.

So imagine a chaotic evil character, Mr Moneybags, who selfishly wants to become wealthy and is willing to break the law and kill other people to acquire wealth. However, what if Mr Moneybags learns that it's more efficient to acquire that wealth by being friendly and cooperative and by following the law? Then why not do that instead?

Being "chaotic evil" alignment doesn't mean becoming the murder hobo. Sometimes being evil means being good. You catch more flies with honey and all that.

Honestly, I think the whole alignment system in D&D is just a bit of lazy convenience anyway that really just ends up getting confusing once you start telling complex stories. Alignment isn't a big thing in BG3, and seems to be getting phased out of D&D in general. I approve of this.

The key element in any character arc is the internal flaw and the character arc is the process of overcoming that flaw.

If a character is "stupid evil", then they are by definition flawed. Like Mr Moneybags for example -- a character who's too stupid to realise that murder is not the only way to get rich. If Minthara is doing something stupid then that's a huge opportunity for a character arc.

A character arc doesn't always mean "become nicer". Sometimes it can be the opposite. Many stories have been told where the climax is the protagonist learning to "love themself more" or "fight back against the bully" or whatever.

It's sad that the only rpg I can easily think of that does this is Final Fantasy IV

I'm getting some serious deja vu regarding this alignment convo

Edit: here's what I'm thinking of

Don't really want a redemption arc as such. More so somewhat wholesome development. Something along the lines "I can trust MC" while still being somewhat evil. Preferably not baby kicking, mustache twirling variety.

I just hope Mithara doesn't devolve into: "HAHA, i really don't care about you, here have a backstab!" at the "first" opportunity.

To be honest, I feel like Minthara features, as a character, a huge potential both to be reedemed or to be drawn into the darkness.
On one side, she is clearly willing to harm innocents and acts really nasty towards her followers. She is really, really vengeful as well.
But, if we take look at her other character traits, she can show mercy, she does clearly care about the PC, shows him/her plenty of compassion and trust, while literally risking her life and position, 2 of things that she values the most, for us. But there has to be something specific, for this to happen.
As for the reason, why the romance is going so fast, it's because:
To sum it up; She is multi-layered, complex character, who features both bad and good traits. The reason for why though, the "evil" side does dominate, is written above. Personally, I think that she should feature possiblity of either becoming someone much worse/better; depending on the choice of player, simply because there is a good logical reason for this to happen.

EDIT: Just forgot about it; The whole character of Minthara is a good example why DnD alignment system is flawed. It's simplyfying the possible personalities way too much. For example someone can be mostly selfish, but will never harm others, lie, cheat etc. Basically all of things that make a character good; with exception that they are... selfish.

What if a law abiding character learned it is more efficient to kill and steal to acquire the wealth? There should also be nothing wrong with doing this.
Sometimes being good means doing evil.
Agreed. It seems to make people feel they "have" to be a certain way to fit into their alignment rather than doing things naturally.
Being evil does not mean being stupid but it does show up in all alignments. Mr. Moneybags might actually be very smart and decided murder is the most efficient way to getting rich.
Your examples here aren't really the opposite of becoming nicer. Good is definitely not nice a lot of the time anyway.

Character growth and development is always a good thing but the constant general assumption that evil always needs redeeming is just tiring and annoying. The rare times a good character turns evil usually get screwed up too, they always have to regret it and get sucked into the redemption crap as well. I hope for more options rather than the same worn out and unrealistic stuff that shows up everywhere.


Any sort of non redemption development option would be fine with me. It really should be hard to gain her trust though, and depending on choices made there may be some backstabbing along the way.

And how exactly do we learn this? If a character is capable of feeling fear and can feel sadness due to loss they are not strong and are tragic and broken? Strong are only those that never feel fear and dgaf about anything?

I don't agree with you. Characters can develop by acquiring new qualities, rather than getting rid of old ones. There are also a bunch of stories where the characters learn to live with their "internal flaw" or indulge it. It's all very individual. And it's still considered a development. You do not have to "fix" everything to make the character more developed and interesting. Good deeds adhere to morality, evil deeds are mostly immoral. There is a big difference between catching flies for the sake of selfishness and for the sake of helping others.

Also, chaotic evil should be "stupid" according to your concepts, because in most cases it is classified as a "monster" who just likes to destroy everything. Again, chaotic evil doesn't need a good reason to kill someone or destroy something. Many chaotic characters kill for fun (or they're really monsters), and not because of an order (lawful evil) or for benefit (neutral evil).


As someone has already said, killing can be the easiest and most profitable way to get rich, so your "mister" may not be such a "stupid evil", he just likes simple ways.



Also sad for me, because it implies a change in the characters ' worldview, which I don't approve of. I believe that a character can develop in the direction of their mores, views and tastes. Let it make him mad or maliciously great.


We are talking about evil characters, in this case, writers often resort to the "arch of redemption" method, which makes them "become nicer". Cuz for evil "love themself more" means becoming even more selfish. My point is that these examples are not suitable for evil characters, you understand that such endings happen to heroes.

Evil characters can become even more evil, can be obsessed with revenge, want to become great, and they can gloat over and over again, becoming more ignorant. The big problem is that we don't have many stories about evil in evil way, where evil didn't fall or change for good way. Especially in games.

And this is not because it is a "bad way", it's just that we constantly talk about heroes and encourage morality. Even in stories about maniacs, the detective most often wins, although life is full of stories when the killer was not found and he did not get what he deserved.

No worries, I will explain.

Look at drow society. Displaying any kind of emotions is seen as weakness there, since it can be exploited. We do learn that she is full of fear and she tells us, although in anger,(we can presume that she tries to bluff us) we are told, that she uses the fear to strengthen herself (So she is ashamed of the feeling and in her eyes, it makes her weak, in her opinion). Which is clearly against what we get to learn via mind-reading.

She is tragic and broken person, because of both from where she comes (no, don't tell me that drow society is good in any way, according to lore almost everyone is insane there) and since we are told that she lost lots of family members, lovers and friends -> someone, her enemies I guess, killed them (it's also hinted that she did care about them, unlike typical drow). On top of this, her entire life is to quote the game itself "anticipating knife in the back".
The transformation of her behavior is also a kind of hint, towards who she really is.

There is very little of what you could call a good or happy life there. Struggling to survive every day is completely opposite of that actually.
In a short summary: In her eyes, being cold, uncaring, fearless etc. is seeing as being strong. That's what they basically "teach" the drow in Underdark. But, looking at how she acts later, I really question that she believes this without any kind of doubt.

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask; I reloaded basically every time I had a dialog with more important NPCs (Kagha, Halsin, etc.) so that I could learn more about them.

@TheOnlyRealTav

So you think that everyone that is raised in an ''evil'' society are tragic and broken? All drow, all goblins etc? Every individual can feel sad for loss. Also, from what I undrstood, she killed a lot of the people she cared about due to betrayal, not enemies, but it's not that important. There are always unpleasant things on any path you take, doesn't mean that the path is not for you, as soon as you encounter the first difficulty.

It depends on what society it is. A son of a cruel dictator is raised in evil society, but is his life bad? I do not think so. Life of most evil, average characters in DnD is miserable though.

Goblins mostly aren't that smart to be evil in same way as humans/elves/drow. They also have natural tendency towards evil, something that the races mentioned before lack.

Because of how does the life of almost every drow in Underdark look like, you can say that it is tragic, to a different extent.

The daily struggle for survive, combined with pathological society rules, evil and cruel things happening everywhere, is probably why does the lore refer to almost all of them going insane.

IIRC the custcene with mind-reading says that she is scarred mentally due to all of the lossses, constant betrayals, and "anticipating the knife in the back"

Then we get to learn about her "enemies, friends, lovers and family members, slain too soon" which is really vague and not so easy to interpret, as the first line.

The interpretations that come almost instantly to my mind, are:
- she was forced/really unwilling to betray people she cared about, it resulted in their deaths
- her enemies killed lots of people that she cared about
- people she cared about, betrayed her and she was forced to kill them (She gets really angry if we betray her during the camp interaction, which hints that this could be a very real possibility)

The first line and the interaction with player after the failed attempt to kill us in sleep tell us, in a obvious way, that she clearly does not like betraying others.
It doesn't come as easy thing for her. If she has done it before, which very likely was the case, as she is a drow; it wasn't out of her choice, or there was huge feeling of guilt left afterwards, combined with being really conflicted over what to do.

Then we got the fact that she dislikes Lolth, a goddess of betrayal, backstabbing and cruelty. Another hint.

What you call "evil" may not be considered "evil" by the character itself. For example, you say that goblins are too stupid, but this does not prevent them from being cruel, just because it is normal for them. They don't think they're doing anything wrong. I'm sure it works for drow too. The definition of evil or good actions comes from "morality", according to moral principles, some actions are considered evil, but the fact is that the concept of morality and justice in each society is different. So what you would consider a "tragic situation" would be something for drow to laugh about.

It is surprising to me that Minthara's fate as a cleric in drow society could be tragic. As far as I know, cleric of Lolth occupy high positions in their hierarchy. She should have been respected.



Almost all of them? Can I ask you for a source? I want to read it.

Yeah, no one wants to kill people that they like, she has no problems with killing innocent people that she doesn't know personally though, there is zero hesitation or remorse on her part when it comes to slaughtering everyone in the grove. She hesitates killing the player because she likes the player, personally, it's like if you were a servant of the absolute and absolute asked you to smash your nice car that you like. You belong to her, remember?

Yes, no problem.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Drow

Unlike inherently evil creatures like orcs,[58] the evil of the drow wasn't of inherent nature:[59][60] They enforced the Way of Lolth,[61] leading to a race of emotionally stunted people,[31] with a tenuous grasp on sanity and scarred mentalities, among which relatively undamaged minds were considered abnormal.[59] However, as mentioned above, the drow had no innate drive towards evil and their morality was colored by the society they lived in.[60]


The difference though, is that goblins even if exposed to good behavior towards them, may still not get it and will not change. It's literally not possible for them to understand.

Drow, if removed from their society and treated well, will in majority of cases become better people.

The very ract that cult of Lolth is forcibly enforced, tells you that it's not uncommon for drow to have doubts about it.

I do not think that fearing about your life every day as a drow, would be trurly enjoyable for anyone but really crazy people. Fear is always negative emotion, which can turn life into suffering. So is being forced to hide all of your emotions and de facto being alone, since noone can be trusted.

Her life, even as a cleric of Lolth is still tragic, because if she would be born as a noble elf on surface, certainly there would be less negative aspects than here, not to mention very important thing:
With greater power, comes greater responsibility.
As a priest of Lolth and a member of powerful noble family she is even more exposed to all the infighting, betrayals and struggle for power. That includes trying to survive among people who want to get rid of her.

That is not really suprising though, if you judge her with consideration of where she comes from. Article on wiki from the link above might let you understand about it more.

But so does she belong to you. Do not forget, that would her deception towards the Absolute be discovered, things would go really badly. She risks her life and position just so that you are alive and even provides considerable help, just so that you stay safe. This is already a heavy improvement over typical drow behavior.

That's why I wrote above, about her being multi layered character. You will find both bad and good traits in her; There is potential to turn her towards one of those sides, that's for sure.

As for the innocent characters, noone can deny that she isn't willing to attack the grove. But what I found really interesting, is that she de-humanizes the inhabitants of grove by calling them "infidels" and "filth". It's probably her trying to rationalize the entire attack; we do know that she is sadistic too. This coupled with thirst for power and she sees it at that moment as perfectly fine.

This doesn't mean that she won't regret it later though. Take look at Nathyrra from NWN, they share some simliarities.

Thing is, we've yet to wait for the game to show us the true reason, for the attack. It's probabably because she wants to impress her superiors, but there were some interesting possibilities with

Either way, it's really stupid that we have to kill Minthara or Halsin. They are really interesting characters and there is little reason for both of them to die.
Even for evil playthroughs, there is reason to have both of them stay alive.

@TheOnlyRealTav

See, I find that people very often confuse the two. Whether a character is capable of feeling attraction and love is completely seperate from how they treat other people. I don't know if you player The old republic but there is a companion and a romance option for Sith warrior - Jaesa. If you romance her, she falls very deeply in love with you and acts very anti-sith like when it comes to you, she says that even though you are her master she would never betray you, never hurt you and never try to kill you and take over, like sith apprentices do when they are ready, and she proves this with her deeds in the story so it's not just words. But at the same time she is a sadisic psychopath when it comes to anyone else, she likes inflicting pain, torture and kill, says after fights in an ecstasy ''their pain is exquisite'' and is a zealot when it comes to the rest of the Sith doctrine. The fact that someone falls in love with and is kind towards you does not mean that it's some kind of step towards being loving and kind to everyone in general.

There are big differences between those 2 characters still; Also we've yet to learn the full story for Minthara to judge it that precisely.

I honestly do not think, that she will be at any point good towards everyone, if redeemed. More like neutral and still uncaring, homever without harming innocents or others without any good reason. And certainly in very good relation towards PC.

I know that there is a difference, I was just explaining the difference.

I'm just saying that your assumption that:


Is not necessrily true, because she might just be reluctant only because she likes you. If she didn't, she maybe could've done it without any hesitation, which one of the indicators is she does it without hesitation if you probe her for her negative thoughts, since then she is mad at you and no longer has a high opinion of you.

How many people have "good" D&D characters murdered? Often that number seems pretty high. lol.

I mean characters like The Punisher would be a chaotic good, right?

Two questions to ask:

• Why is the society evil? Is it because some members of that society are being abused? If everyone's happy then it gets a bit hard to argue that it's an evil society.
• Why is the character evil? Can they adjust to living in a "good" society where you'll be more successful by being nice and friendly?

There are plenty of examples of evil/good characters who adapt to the society they involve themselves in. Urdnot Wrex from Mass Effect is an example. He comes from a brutal "evil" society, but he joins your party and he's a pretty cool guy. However, one of his goals is to revive the krogan race from the brink of extinction, so when it appears that the villain Saren will be able to help him achieve his goal, he is willing to betray you and join Saren against you. To keep him from betraying you, you have to convince him that:
1) This is not the right way
2) Saren's just going to enslave them anyway.