I'll put this first bit in spoilers this time because it's actually substantially off topic now, but I did want to at least give some answers to these bits ^.^



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...to my surprise I found myself liking Reg more than Octavia. Somewhat interesting representation an unhealthy relationship but Octavia wasn't a well written character, she didn't seem a real to life, more like a magpie's collection of personality traits.

Yeah, I think what they were going for with Octavia was flighty and mercurial, impulsive and passionate... but what they ended up with was a character that was just plain a lot more incoherent and inconsistent than they probably wanted, and she just didn't... work.

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I think it's a POV that helps people recognize and escape exploitive relationships.

Yes, perhaps... in the cases where it is warranted, but at the level to which you are identifying it, this comes at the unacceptable cost of often also vilifying innocent people who do not deserve it at all.

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Am I right say that we see the same things but you simply see them and think "but that's not a bad thing!"

Yes and no; We both see a person cleaning the house properly, putting the kettle on and bringing their partner a cup of tea and a biscuit when they get in from work, before sitting down to talk to them about an issue they're nervous about... and for some reason, you choose to see “That person is manipulating their partner! Fie! Cad! What Slimy Behaviour! (please read in humorous, over-exaggerated Monty Python voice ^.^)”... While I see a person who is picking their moment and trying to make sure that their partner is in the best state to listen to and hear their problem. It is not that I see manipulation but think that it's okay... I disagree that there is manipulation happening at all.

I feel that with this outlook you are actually and genuinely vilifying people who do not deserve it and potentially doing genuine harm to other people by doing so, if it is something you apply to your daily life, and that is why I am concerned for you holding that perspective; not just for you, but for the people around you that you may have harmed unjustly by treating them as villains or aggressors when they are not. The fact that you've said you try to train other people to act as you do is, frankly, terrifying, if we're applying it to a real world situation. If I've misunderstood where you stand, it's not my intent... it's just how it's come to look from my perspective.

For the game related bits:

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The four of us transform and we take out say 30 - 50 flaming fist and few clerics? Gale will take out 140K?

As others mention, a handful of highly intelligent mindflayers can become the enslavement and downfall of entire civilisations, if left unchecked. If they go to ground long enough to set up a base of operations, spawn and begin to expand their influence, the problem grows rapidly. In time, one will transform into an Ulitharid, and when a suitable location is found, it will become a new Elder Brain, creating the lair and brine pools necessary for its growth in the process. This is far, far more dangerous and has an overall much higher potential for loss of life than a single explosion that happens once, and then is gone – even if that explosion flattens a city. These tadpoles are tampered with, and we don't know exactly what that entails, but it seems unlikely that it would reduce their ability to dominate the world, or make them overall more benign a threat.

It comes off as pretty repugnant and very “Fine for me but not for thee”, to say that it's okay and morally acceptable for you not to self-terminate and to continue looking for a solution, because you're only endangering 30-50 sapient lives, you think, probably, but that Gale is a bad person for not self-terminating immediately upon the understanding of his condition... Despite the fact that you have no idea if, or when, your condition may become lethal to those around you, or if you will have any warning signs that you can react to... while Gale has an exceptionally good grasp of his time fuse, and a reliable method of prolonging it that can be tangibly met.

If it's okay for you to fly to the city for your tadpole, and all its uncertainties, then it's okay for Gale to fly there for his orb, with its much more reliable management. You cannot condemn him as selfish, and judge him for that, without judging yourself as even worse.

==

The timeline for Gale is fuzzy regarding when he was cut off, when he lost his power, and how long it's been – and that fuzziness doesn't do him any favours. The only way it makes sense in the present situation, unless he is lying about the whole situation, is that his loss of power happened pretty much exactly when the shadow orb attacked and latched onto him – he wasn't able to invoke the magic that would let him deal with it at that moment, because that was the moment when he was cut off. We also have to suppose that, since that time, he hasn't actually had access to any of his other resources as a powerful mage of Waterdeep – since if he did, those resources likely would have availed him of assistance, as much as he hopes Baldur's Gate to now. That fuzziness is indeed a potential problem for Gale's good character.

The likely scenario is that, as described, his cutting off from his powers and the massive reduction of his capabilities happened when he discovered that cut off section of shadow weave, and as a result he literally couldn't get himself back to the material plane at all in the condition he found himself in – that he has not, in fact, been back to Waterdeep since acquiring the orb, and the ex-planar pocket he found it in may have afforded him other options to get out, but not sufficient to get him home before he was picked up by plane-hopping Ilithids – Or even that it was those very Illithids that found him stranded in that pocket and took him there, since we know that the illithids have been working with netherese magic, which is related to his immediate situation and the shadow weave chunk, and the pocket he found it in.

==

Szazz Tamm is a powerful lich, and the current long-standing ruler of Thay. His hobbies include necromancy, enslavement, the murder and soul-reaping of his enemies and the puppeteering of their undead corpses, and domination of the entirety of Toril, turning it into a dead world populated only by the legions of undead that are all under his control. I think he also plays the cello.

Last edited by Niara; 10/03/23 09:06 AM.