I used to love Lae’zelin EA. Now, after seeing her whole story I just think she is an Uber Mary Sue and my absolutely least favourite character.

Her story is great? Well, the story part about the githyanki is great, it added depth to the githyanki. The part about lae’zel is not so much…

Lae’zel tells you when she joins that she is a nobody, a young warrior from a creche who is devoted to Vlaakith. She tells us she hasn’t yet made a name for herself, but is working on it. She has a pretty strong personality to fit this and all this is great.

She also tells us she has 3 dreams:
1, to serve Vlaakith and make sure the Queen knows how loyal she is.
2, get a silver sword
3, ride a dragon

By the end of the game

1, we learn that Vlaakith knows her name and did know it in the past, despite Lae’zel being a nobody, and later she has Vlaakith coming to her in the camp to manipulate her in person and throw a hissyfit when Lae’zel refuses her. Vlaaith acts like a spurrened girlfriend. Also, seriously, does Vlaakith have nothing better to do but run after and court nameless goons? What makes Lae’zel special enough for Vlaakith to throw a temper tauntrum over her.

2, Voss gives her his silver silver sword for fulfilling a quest that Lae’zel doesn’t actually have to be a part of and plays exactly no part at all when she is there. Tav can make a contract with a devil and potentially sell their soul to fulfill this quest or brave the devil’s house even without Lae’zel. What does Tav get? Nothing. Even if you don’t have Lae’zel in your team when Voss gives you the sword, she will later tell you how happy she is to have that sword amd the game just assumes it is hers.

3, in the end Lae’zel flys away in the sunset on the back of a dragon.

So basically Lae’zel has all her dreams fulfilled while, potentially she does nothing for them as Tav can do all the work. She just keeps bullying Tav throughout the first half of the game, altough she does become a decent character in the second, but in the light of everything that is too little too late.

The worst part of this is, that if you play a custom githyanki Tav as I did for my first playthrough (who I specifically made to romance Lae’zel), you can feel that she just stole the githyanki story. On paper you both are the same, nobodies, young warriors fresh out of some creche. But everyone is fawning over Lae’zel and you are not even noticed. Voss calls you a slave, Vlaakith commends Lae’zel for training you well if you kneel before the Queen and later on will just not notice you, and you will get absolutely no silver swords or dragons as a thank you for your hard work. Despite being the same character, only you are custom Tav and she is Lae’zel. What makes Lae’zel so special that even Vlaakith knows her name? We are never told!

This is why she is a Mary Sue. Her dreams are fulfilled with hardly any work and this is nothing more than bad writing. This could have been fantastic. She could have been fantastic, even with the same story, if only it was less of a generic githyanki story and more customised and explained what makes Lae’zel so special. If the story also catered for what the game play mechanics did and recognised if custom Tav was also a gith and fitted it accordingly.