As someone who used to play through BG1 and BG2 twice a year for about a decade, I completely agree with OP about these characters and how BG3 does not get them right. Now, it's been a while since I did a playthrough, but I do know these characters are much more nuanced than being Shar/Bhaal's evil puppets for the shiny new characters to defeat.

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Sarevok in BG1 is daddy's little pet dog who did what he did in the name of Daddy.

This is flat out inaccurate. BG1 Sarevok wanted to steal Bhaal's position as god of murder, not resurrect or impress Bhaal. One of Sarevok's main issues is also that he hates all father figures---Reiltar abused him and killed his adoptive mother in front of him, Gorion abandoned him in favor of Charname, and Bhaal just wants to use his children as sacrifices to bring himself back to power. Sarevok is intelligent (even by his stats; he has like 17 Int), and knows this about Bhaal. He isn't a brainwashed idiot like in BG3. Sarevok uses Bhaal's imagery to gain followers and embody what Sarevok considers to be his birthright, but he does not follow Bhaal as a religious ideal. Sarevok is also a proud person. The closest he gets to begging is toward Charname in ToB to join the party---after Charname has twice defeated him and earned his grudging respect---and even then, he can betray Charname if Charname doesn't gain even more of his respect.

Being anyone's lapdog is not in Sarevok's character. Bhaal isn't an exception to this.

Also,
I'm livid over Sarevok being portrayed as an incestuous rapist of his own daughter. There's literally nothing about his BG1 or BG2 character that hints toward that. It's like the BG3 writers wanted to give a big F-you to anyone who redeemed Sarevok in ToB.

Similarly, Viconia, while "evil" unless romanced, is pragmatic, proud, and has an innate tendency toward *not* being evil despite all the horrible things she's gone through (not killing a baby, agreeing to undergo a geas to help Charname against Irenicus). In her non-romanced epilogue, she helps the elves of Suldanesselar---who treated her like utter crap in BG2 btw---and gets on Shar's bad side. But in BG3, she's suddenly super into Shar and spends her time torturing children? Right, totally in line with her old self.

What's clear to me is the people who are ok with/justify BG3's portrayal of these characters is that they either never played the originals, never liked these characters, or forgot about the dialogue or story surrounding them. But some of us do remember and do love these characters, and BG3 loses a lot of its appeal based on its treatment of them. I haven't even had the motivation to finish Act 3 because of this. I'm starting a new BG1 run instead.

Last edited by celestielf; 27/09/23 05:22 PM.