Finding out about Karlach's depressing ending options has killed all enthusiasm I had for this game. I'm so incredibly tired of seemingly all modern media being obsessed with being depressing, dark, edgy, ironic, or subversive. Can't we just have a happy ending for once?! I thought with BG3's much-touted thousands of endings that surely one of Karlach's would be happy, right?
Especially since Karlach is the one honest-to-goodness GOOD character in the game. She is an unwavering bright spot in a cast of characters who are all varying degrees of dark and edgy. Her presence seemed to indicate that somebody at Larian knew that some of us want to embrace the classic do-gooder hero archetype. Her whole plot line builds up hope that you can help her and that she can be free. And yet it's all for nothing and she's the character that gets the worst most unhappy endings?! The other characters can escape the awful things happening to them, but not Karlach?! That's just flat out depressing.
I've played up to the inn in the shadowlands three times. The last restart was specifically so I could get Karlach early to have her for as much of the game as possible and to make sure the romance happened. I was so excited she and my character were going to blast through the game attached at the hip. That's how great a character she is! But what a waste of time that turned out to be. I'm honestly glad I got spoiled; I can't imagine how angry I'd be if I'd played the whole game to find out all the breadcrumbs and hope lead to nothing.
And what's more is now I don't trust that the writers will stick any other landings. If they feel this kind of dark bait and switch of a wonderful well-loved character is acceptable and appropriate, then I shudder to think what else is in store. I feel like I'd need to look up spoilers for the whole game to make sure it's not dark and depressing all the way down, and if I need to do that then what's the point?!
Thank you for starting this thread and giving me a place to lay out my thoughts. I really enjoyed my week with BG3 and I wish things were different. Maybe the writers will rethink this and add a way to fix Karlach and have an actual happy ending. I sure hope so.
Justice for Karlach!
I think one of the biggest signs to me, as the individual who's made these posts and such is the sheer amount of people being /glad/ they were spoiled, or completely demotivated by the knowledge, if not both. That is the biggest sign, absolutely, that something needs changing. I hope that we're successful so each and every person that's replied to my posts with a similar message is able to be motivated, and pleased with the result.
