Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion [END SPOILS WARNING] Addressing Karlach (PLEASE PUT SPOILERS IN TAGS)

The whole "Good person who just wants to live, but doesn't have the option to" trope they have going for her is just too much for me. Hits too close to home.

It sounds stupid, but it really is one of those things which has left that terrible knot in the pit of my stomach.

I just can't bring myself to keep playing, which is so sad, because I haven't felt this invested in a game in years.

Agreed, Ive been singing my praises for this game and will again. Larian, you guys killed it!

I also agree that it looks like her Act 3 quest has remnants of cut content in it, which is why so many people thought her quest was just bugged a few days ago.

The ending in general I think could use some work, even some epilogue cards, just SOMETHING to end our experience on a rewarding note.

Agreed. Her story reads like a bad allegory for terminal illness, especially the hope-baiting that happens all game. It might have worked better had the setting not been a fantasy realm with fixes around every corner.

A good tragedy is supposed to invoke catharsis, not grief, which from your comment you do not sound cathartic at all.

I also hope Larian addresses these issues, it sucks too because her bad ends would be such a GOOD quest fail state if the player is the reason she didnt get fixed, but the lack of a solution, despite potential fixes being absolutely everywhere, feels like a gut punch.

Fine, I guess it’s just semantics then.
Justice for Karlach.

Quite the opposite of catharsis indeed.

I don't even dislike "tragic" endings. I genuinely adored the tone with which Cyberpunk 2077 ends where you leave Night City with the Nomads. It's made clear that while you don't have much time, you have a little, and you'll spend it with the people you care about.

That's it. The end of CP2077 is totally what a tragic/bittersweet end is, you know V is barely dead, you leave with the nomads hoping for a solution, but you know there's 99% chance that it will end in 6 months.
Also Lee in Telltale's The Walinkg Dead is a tragic character, as you know that he'll die and become a zombie real fast, but anyway he'll do everything to save Clementine.

But here Karlach's fate doesn't need to be that tragic in any way without a solution or at least an explanation. Her issue is not that bad as it shown in the game, compared to what we see, like a full region cursed, a forest spirit "cut in half", or a woman that cannot make her husband live as he's dead and rotting for months.

#JusticeForKarlach
#LetTheGondiansFixHerHeart

It goes to show what a loveable character they've manage to create. So many of us have been looking forward to playing this game for years and so many of us love it aswell, but we would rather stop the experience early rather than going through to the end knowing what sort of emotional distress it'll cause us, and I think that speaks to how invested some of us are in this incredible game.

So please Larian allow us to fully enjoy this game, allow us to work towards a happy ending if that's the route we choose to pursue. Don't make us feel as if all the work and emotions we're putting in is all in vain that there will be no happy ending for us even after overcoming all the challenges that've been thrown at us.
Alot of us play these games as an escape from reality (myself included) and I know most of us want to feel good and excited when we close the game for the night, not an overwhelming sense of anxiousness and dread of what's to come when you start it up again the next day.

So please allow us to feel we have the power to save those we love and care for. For this exact feeling is the reason some of us escape reality and immerse ourselves so heavily in these games.

Yes this is how I've felt as well. I can not bring myself to push forward and have simply opted to taking an extended break from the game.

The endings could be more acceptable if they felt narratively earned. They are an ending to a specific tragedy, but it proceeded in such a way that it feels hollow.

Thats because a tragedy typically requires the fallen to have caused their own downfall. Neither the player nor Karlach are responsible for, or have any agency in her ending.

Tragedy =/= cruelty

Even an epilogue card with some hopeful narration would have done wonders to making it feel more satisfying.

Justice for Karlach!

Amen.

Don't know if some of you open a D&D DM book. At the end you have several pages of conclusion where each little part of all your story have its epilogue. So the players are satisfied to know what's next, even if it's not the best ending, depending of the Journey, but at least you know and you can start a new campaign without any frustration like "what could have happened if I had the possibility to change it".

Fact that there is no explanation about how things goes bad for Karlach in the whole game, there is no solution at least mentionned (without talking about a deus ex machina that most of the NPC have too, and that Karlach deserves too ngl), nothing you can do to change her fate... yeah we're not in a tragedy, we're more in a story that is not told to the end... for now only, I hope.


Justice for Karlach, she deserves one end with a lot of flowers too, after all she suffers without asking anything.

i need to say just one thing

#JusticeForKarlach

I think "movement" and "cause" are just words that have fallen under the umbrella, we've been called a movement, faction, cause, many similar words. I don't think anyone means to be overly obsessive, but many of us are driven and know that we have to maintain our voice to see any kind of success, or be seen by Larian at all. Appreciate your contribution and support none the less.

Just made an account to post here. There's nothing I could add that hasn't been said already about how Karlach deserves a happy ending, how much the character has resonated with me, how much the VA absolutely killed the role, improved my playthrough...everything everyone's already said.

What I will add is an extremely important consequence of Karlach's poor conclusion, at least for me: I have no desire to play her as an origin character or even have her in my party when I inevitably replay this game. For such a great character this is an absolute tragedy, but since her endings are all functionally the same, there's nothing more for me to discover about her in different playthroughs. After having Shadowheart go down a good path, I'm looking forward to a Dark Urge game where she can after ending the game with Gale in my party, on another run I can But with Karlach, since no roads lead to fixing her heart, one playthrough is sufficient to get everything out of the character, save a single dialogue option at the end that lets you choose death versus Avernus. On that note, I feel like there's no difference between choosing to die or choosing to go to Avernus--her problem is that her heart doesn't work, and neither of those address that. No matter what route we take, she ends up in exactly the same place we found her in at the beginning of the game.

Squid ending can stay because it's goofy as hell and while it feels bad on a character level (given there's no good ending to fall back on), it feels like an extremely out of left field D&D move I can absolutely see a player at my table making during a tabletop finale. Plus, if we had a satisfactory good ending for Karlach, I honestly feel like mind flayer would be a fine "option to save Karlach if you blew off all her personal quest stuff" kinda ending.

This is another great point. A lack of ending variety would become a glaring issue seeing all the possible permutations to every other party members ending, but hers ends basically the same way every time.

This unfortunately killed the game for me. I don't think it would have if I was playing an origin character, but as my own character, it did. I'm very invested in my character, because it's my character, and finding out that I can't succeed at perhaps the only thing I wanted, really just makes me not want to continue at all.

After the Act 3 date night and the subsequent conversation, it seemed like the game was again telegraphing that there was no good ending. I thought that surely that must not be the case, but knew I would be mad if it was, so I went to find out. Glad I did, because it spared me the experience of finding out first hand only after investing even more time and emotional energy into the game. She's perhaps the only character I actively liked from the start, one of the few who isn't arrogant, self-righteous, or self-serving. Being made to listen to Karlach's happiness about being free and in the world, the city she grew up in, and the people she cares about, only to learn that her choices for life are being a slave for eternity, being mutilated, or being dead, really crushed any desire I have to keep playing. Dropping the game 80% of the way through is rough, but when I load it up I just feel no motivation to continue playing.

It's a fantasy world with plenty of opportunity, not just in the general D&D universe, but *specifically in the game* and having them all completely disregarded, is a tragedy. Such a wholesome character wasted on what I think the writers must have thought was deep and tragic, but is instead just offensive and disappointing. People have already covered the plentiful ways that her story could have been addressed by things specifically called out in the game as being possible and real solutions, but literally any of those would be better than what we got. Have the Grymforge gnomes fix her, have Dammon fix her, let me use Divine Intervention on her, do literally anything that has already been established as possible, but not just "lol oh well she must suffer for all eternity because we think it's funnier that way."

Guess I'll see if it gets fixed in a Definitive Edition, because right now I can't find the motivation to continue.

We can all only hope that its remedied in a Definitive Edition (given the work), or sooner. So many people have approached me on the discord, or posted similar comments to yourself that it either ruined their experience, made them want to give up, or that they were glad to be spoiled, saving themselves the emotional turmoil of having the ability to save her, but being refused the opportunity to investigate, or grasp it. I hope Larian hears us out, and in the coming months, or even year, we succeed in getting Karlach the ending she deserves.

#JusticeForKarlach

Anyone with a youtube video of the Karlach ending where Tav asks her if she wants to stay and die in the material plane or go with they (tav) to avernus?

I like her reply there and its a good argument on how Karlach grew from being absolutely against ever going back to really putting her desire for a emotional relationship with Tav above her own personal fears of Avernus.

I'll try, last time i only saw 1 person with fairly bad combo of dialogues, the guy seemly avoided all the romantic replies Karlach gives to the player on purpose.

Speaking of which, at least Karlach isnt in the same level of frustration as Minthara, on the other thread here some dialogue for her was data mined and apparently I am actually quite sad such big chunk of content was left out of BG3.