Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Larian screwed up big time [Epic story fail] [Spoilers]

At the end of the Githyanki Creche, you meet queen Vlaakith for the first time. You can choose a dialogue option to mock her, and if you do, the game instantly ends. You lose.

You might think my complaint is just that I lost the game and I'm upset about that, but let's give that a pass. Let's say it's acceptable to have a diplomatic fail so epic that instantly losing the game is not an anti-fun mechanic (though it is), but treat it as an acceptable design. It is still completely awful for the game by the way it manifests:

The dialogue option is something along the lines of, "If you're such a powerful God, why don't you do it yourself?". It's already a very odd line because, up until this point, she is just the Githyanki queen. Nobody, not even Lae'zel, has ever once referred to her as a God, yet this dialogue option suddenly appears. If you continue mocking her Godhood then she responds with something like, "I wish you to die". And then you do. Your entire party dies instantly and the game is over. She simply wishes it and it is so. It's like Death Note but without the note.

So why is this a problem? If Vlaakith really is so powerful that simply wishing you to no longer exist is possible then the hunt for the artefact is entirely meaningless. Sending soldiers after you is pointless. It's all performative. If you don't mock her, you can instead decline to obey her wishes, and if you do so, she does not kill you. Why? We now know she has that power. Simply put, being able to wish anyone dead completely breaks the lore. In a world where such a thing is possible, life itself and its choices have no meaning. What is the point in role playing in such a world?

As an aside, before killing the inquisitor and meeting the queen, you're blocked by a subordinate who is trying to find the artefact you hold. I went to great lengths to obscure it and ensure nobody knew I had it, by pickpocketing the key from her to proceed instead of brandishing it in front of her and avoiding rolls that would tease it out of dialogue. Nevertheless, by the time you reach the inquisitor, everyone acts like they knew you had it the entire time, particularly Vlaakith. Again, if this is the case, she should just wish you dead from the start. Nothing that follows from this makes any sense because such a power is a force nothing can ever reckon with. How can I be an actor with my own agency and not just a pawn in her game in such a world? It actually makes me want to stop playing.