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

Geez, upon just reading everyone's thoughts and spoilers I was severely underestimating the, uh, 'not-good-ness' of the Avernus ending. It's, like, GLARINGLY obvious even before you reach the end.

Took Karlach with me to the House of Hope to steal the hammer and she basically had a small panic attack upon stepping foot in the Hells at all, immediately feeling trapped and cornered again. Just triple underline under the fact that it's her place of immense trauma, regardless of her options there. Dying DOES feel like an option preferable to ever getting stuck there again, she's not being unreasonable about that at all (not in her mind anyway). House of Hope, potential alliances, Zariel-maybe-not-being-SUCH-an-evil, not being alone anymore, it all doesn't really help when the whole landscape and the air itself are a giant trigger.

And I, as her lover, am about to convince her to go back there anyway and then call it a 'good' option? With the only alternative there being for her to die (or technically die by the virtue of becoming a mindflayer, which, no)?

Makes me feel like a selfish shit, man, and at this point it's EXTREMELY confusing which ending is supposed to be paraded as 'good' for her (at the current moment). Per the recent patch it seems to be Avernus, but uh. Uuuh.

Like. On the surface you can KINDA say that the final choice is sort of structurally the same as with the other companions. Meaning that there's one route which the character was following anyway and one route which you can try and convince them to switch to (become Justiciar/reject Shar, worship the Queen/betray the Queen, ascend/do not ascend, etc etc etc). Sometimes your character influences that switch naturally through their actions. So TECHNICALLY it's the same with Karlach - she stubbornly follows the death route, unless you convince her otherwise in the very end and your previous actions support that change (i.e. someone can go with her).

That's technically.

But narratively? While (on a good playthrough) I'm dragging every other friend AWAY from their source of trauma (whether they realize it or not) - sometimes through killing that source, sure, but we still LEAVE...

...with Karlach my 'good' option is to PUSH HER BACK into the place where she can hardly freaking breathe (at that point it doesn't even matter if Zariel can or can't get her hands on her again, Avernus itself is poison to her)??? With some vague hope for a future escape which isn't even promised and I have to headcanon that part myself?

Like yes Astarion's "good" ending is also bittersweet (and yes, lacks an epilogue), but at the very least we know that even though he can't walk in the sun anymore - he's still doing leagues better than he was before the game's events.

Karlach's 'good' ending is like. If we didn't kill Cazador at all AND Astarion lost his ability to walk in the sun AND for whatever reason he could never leave Baldur's Gate either. Or had to hide in the mansion's walls trying not to be found. Something like that. Or maybe if his quest ended the second we stepped into that mansion and the whole fight afterwards was left to our imagination.

But with a badass soundtrack for a cool barbarian exit.

Uuugh I dunno, on one hand the dilemma between "Letting her die in peace but she'll DIE" and "Convince her to live because you are unable to let go and drag her back into the worst possible place for her mentally" is, in fact, a real emotional conflict to have, but DAMN does it feel like an unfair punishment compared to EVERYONE else in the game (meaning the major characters of course, lest someone reminds me of tragic background NPCs again)...

And the severely-lacking-player-effort-questline is of course a giant insult to injury.

I am passively-aggressively stacking my giant pile of various infernal armor in the corner of my camp.