As someone who romanced Victoria back in the day but hate Shadowheart and Laezel this is a question about choice for me. Taking Victoria was very much my decision. There were enough characters to pick a good/neutral party in two whole games and not go through the whole cast. I hadn’t taken Victoria till my third playthrough. In BG3 though being charitable there are three good/neutral characters available in act 1 and another 3 in act 2. You’re forced to take Laezel, Shadowheart, Astarion or Dark Urge on your first playthrough for a good 40-50 hours of the game every single time unless you take a hireling or vanilla origin.
The other part of it is overuse of the redemption arc. If you take Victoria in a non evil party she’s on a long slow and not particularly well done redemption arc amongst 5 other good or neutral characters. But if you’re trying to do a good playthrough in BG3 then all of your characters are on a redemption arc which feels very overused.
