Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Let's make Minthara Great Again

Again, this is common to happen, it's mostly like to be fixed. If you try other armors yourself, especially the unavailable ones with mods, you'll see that many of them are now broken, clipping, some models look weird, etc.
I don't even think this is the final version for many characters and companions, they are changing them constantly and will keep doing so until the game is complete. It's a normal process.

and if they were?

Here's a camp scene where we can compare the full outfit from the side.

Take notice of the steel kneecaps from the male model here in patch 5 and the broadness of figure in comparison to the below image.
Here in the pre patch 5 iteration her brown kneecaps come from the female ringmail model; and her figure is less broad and more feminine.

I think a clear difference can be seen here.

It's possible she is supposed to have a "cultist leader" armor and Larian doesn't want to spoil it yet. Considering they won't even let wizards have their robes.

Someone has datamined several armors not implemented in the EA yet, and these include cultist robes.

Hmm this image of her with short hair made her look good. I mean, I will never have any real interest or butcher a bunch of innocent children just to have sex with a random murderous lady I just met. but still, she looks good here. But, be patient, in time she will probably even get her own exclusive armor and all. Although would make more sense if she got a unique armor after Act 2 if she's alive and all. It's clear that Larian is giving her attention by even giving her a unique hairstyle.

Just an idea: Why don't you ask the mods to merge all the Minthara thread and get that mega thread over into the Megathread section. I think, those are the threads, Larian is actually taking notive of? I mean, I don't care about her looks, but clearly some of you are very passionate about it, that way, something might actually come out of it?

I assume you can just report your own thread and in the message just type "could the Minthara threads be added as a single megathread?" i agree, having 3 or more threads on a single aspect of a single minor character seems a bit much, but who am i to judge what people like.

I'm kinda new to forums; I don't particularly know how to go about that; it seems like a good idea though.

Contact one of the mods, vometia or The Composer for example and ask them to merge the three Minthara visual threads into one in the megathread section.

I only have two and I know Onemanarmy has at least two as well.

I was never a big Minthara fan, generally speaking, but I definitely do NOT think she looks better now.

More scarecrowing? Everyone understands the points being made, but it does little to help the overall argument against the changes. You want her to be beautiful, a real lady/drow? ok got it. But other people have different standards of beauty, or maybe think that beauty is not necessarily the goal here, but perhaps something else like a sense of menace, so now we're at an impasse. But if you just focus on what you don't like rather than wrapping it in those other things, it's possible to have a conversation about the art that doesn't just degenerate into culture politics in like 2 seconds. When you imply that such and such a visual aesthetic is an endorsement of a certain worldview or whatever, you lose traction with half the audience that thinks you are reading into it things which aren't really there. Or maybe they will dismiss you on the grounds that your culture politics don't seem to align with their own, and so they choose the new look just be contrarian in that way. Relying on crib terms like "woke" and then threatening the specter of failed sales or all caps disaster to make your points, substituting your own view for that of product consumers around the world, it just makes many peoples eyes gloss over too. Sorry, but that's what happens. It might actually be possible to change a couple minds on the specific point at issue, but drag in all the rest of that stuff and you lose the argument before it even starts. The reason there are 3 threads now, is because they keep getting derailed by people trying to be social provocateurs, and for some reason choosing this Minthara molehill as the one to die on. I mean everyone here is a visual traditionalist already, at least in the sense that the BG3 art is all figurative and grounded in the traditional. It's not wading into conceptualism or unmoored by abstraction from any way to actually talk about it as art without relying on philosophy. But whatever, I guess some of these divides are just totally intractable now and this stuff is going to be a ubiquitous feature of modern life for anything that involves criticism of any sort. But seriously, we're here talking about the makeup right now. I don't think my preference for black eyeliner over silver eyeliner in this particular instance says anything whatsoever about my views on gender, or women, or normality. Or I don't know, maybe it actually does, but that conversation probably isn't terribly interesting and its unlikely to move anyone in the art department. So why does that need to get inserted into the conversation? It doesn't. It really doesn't.

The main point in favor of the old makeup haircut and outfit (over the new makeup, haircut and outfit), is that the old look produced better cast shadows and made the figure appear more vignetted in shadow. They seemed to hold better both in low light conditions and in full light conditions, as evidence from the many side by sides in this thread. The play off the environment lighting was stronger, whether that light is scattering blue or flickering orange. The animations were stronger too. Everything about her appearance was bolder and more impactful in the previous rendering. Regardless of whether one finds Minthara objectively hot or not, or thinks that's important for whatever reason. They don't need to make the cover of vogue italia here, but I think they should aim for a good villainous aesthetic since this is one of the main villains in act 1. You know, if you're looking for a tradtion, how about long tradition of villainous looks from D&D fantasy art, since that's the only one that should really matter here.

Yes, maybe her new slightly less constricted and more frail/human look is better now than it was before, since it apparently slightly detracts from the "beauty" of her retrograde storyline.

Sorry, but you can't really separate the aesthetics of someone's story from their face. I think her previous look was aesthetically more functional/traditional/regressive within her 'M. Butterfly' -type of story, which is where her perceived beauty, or lack of it, lies. Zooming in on bad makeup, hairstyles etc. is just another way to avoid tackling the "sacrificial idiot foreign madwoman"- aesthetics of her storyline. Based on reactions to her new look, it appears she was more palatable sacrifice as long as her looks were more in line with her crude characterization as a fanatical, one-dimensional, morally reprehensible, subjugated and mentally shattered foreigner: a psychopath with subjugated "mad eyes" and corresponding makeup, that, if we believe OP, previously signaled both psychosis and psychopathy(psychosis and psychopathy are two totally different types of "crazy" btw), at the same time.

BG3 slightly modernizes this sacrificial storyline mold in the sense that it allows the player to join Minthara in sipping the flayer cult squick-koolaid and doomer romance her as the romantic proxy of the new emerging squick god.