-The second point is that Karlach's story is filled with certain tonal inconsistencies that are somewhat difficult to pin down. She seems to react with hope and optimism to certain game events, but when you actually speak to her she has a rather fatalist outlook, particularly in Act 3. At the beginning of Act 3 she tells you "I'm not going anywhere, I have plans for the future", to bleak fatalism, to "We can handle whatever comes at us together" when she takes you on the date, to "I'm going to die and pretending I'm going to live is a fantasy" after the date, to "hey the steel watch is based on me? maybe there's something that can help me there", to raging at her fate after Gortash is dead, to making dinner plans with old friends in the city and saying "first we save the city, then we save me", etc etc. She's excited about life, then she's ready to die, then she's not.
I don't know if the writers intended this rollercoaster or not, but I'd almost say it gave me a sort of... emotional whiplash. The script doesn't seem to know how it wants either the player or the character to feel. It seems to want to give you hope while she herself tries to take it away from you. She constantly swings from doom and gloom to optimism. She repeatedly insists she will never go back to Avernus; it's simply not an option. At the same time, the game almost seems to encourage you to hope and look for other solutions by letting you reassure her not to give up, you'll keep looking for a way. But there are no other solutions, and she suddenly does a 180 at the end and goes back to Avernus anyway? That felt somewhat jarring. The game reinforces to the player that there may be a solution by letting you tell her so, when in fact there is not. It doesn't feel great.
I obviously strongly agree with everything you said, and your second point is the strongest imho. i myself imagined that this rollercoaster was due to rewrites and leftovers from a time when you could actually do something about the whole situation. Emotional whiplash indeed.
