Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
@grey_ghost
Quote
They're not on the side of the absolute like I always assumed Daisy was, I knew their end goal wasn't my transformation so there was some capacity for managing things there. Daisy was just a constant red flag not to engage.

Interesting, thanks smile I never got that from the Guardian. I always assumed their end goal was my transformation. In the revised plot the search for a cure become a McGuffin but I never felt compelled to leave the McGuffin behind. I just talked to Nettie about cure and my knight 'in shining armor wants to swallow a tadpole? Gets downright enthusiastic about swallowing tadpoles when we kill Gut - "that's a true soul parasite brimming with power" You know what you should do with it? Infect yourself even more.

So I always assumed the Guardian was aiming for my transformation. And I can't imagine a run in which I would consume tadpoles.

I guess it's a matter of taste but it still befuddles me. Resisting temptation is fun. I enjoyed Mizorra's seductions and I told her to go away. I enjoyed Raphel (great voice actor) and ended killing him and looting his house. Both were entirely sus and not be trusted - and resisting their temptations a foiling their plots really paid off with the best fight in the game and the best loot.

And of course in BG1 & 2 the dream visitors were sus - I resisted Bhaal's temptations and enjoyed doing so

So, to belabor the point, I think Larian devoted a great deal of energy to fixing something that wasn't broken. While we don't know if that's what led to a broken end game but I suspect it was.

But this is in the great bg2 tradition I guess - BG2 was also rewritten at the last moment and I would have preferred the original plot . . .

A fascinating point of view. I suspected the guardian might want my transformation but I always felt like killing the absolute was their main goal, so not our transformation, which is a meaningful distinction in my mind. I get that resisting temptation is fun, but I actually found the Guardian far more tempting than Daisy ever was. Daisy was like a gold bar hanging over a bottomless pit. It was just so obviously telegraphed that trying to go for it could only be bad and I couldn't trust any of the good being offered. maybe it's a consequence of me not responding to sexual enticement and seduction well. It always just felt gross and dubious and that's what I focused on. Her promises of power in the form of killing and destroying things? My characters don't want that. But the Guardian appealing to the good I could do with the power, that made me feel like it was an actual dilemma. Like I was holding myself back from protecting people by not taking the power.

Funny you should mention Raphael, because he was another character whose temptation I think worked. I was really tempted to accept his deal for the hammer. Because he was offering something I actually wanted. I and my characters never wanted the tadpole powers and Daisy just reinforced that by being creepy and making them so overtly evil. The Guardian meanwhile focused on all the good that could be done with them, made me actually want them and presented them in not the most obviously evil way possible