Originally Posted by SerTomato
Thanks for replying. I agree with what you said, the players do need cathartic release. What confused me is why they have to use old characters to be the punching bag? And they even went out of their way to do it, like you said. Do they hate players of the old games? (Is ths Last of Us Part II?) The villains we got were not well-written at all and literally could be replaced by anyone, any small clown characters. So why have to be them? I really don't understand.

Honestly? I don't know what happened. There's no way that Larian wasn't aware of the popularity of Viconia in particular, and I don't buy the theory the gets floated around in threads like this that it was a dictate from WoTC-the controversial stuff in regards to them seems to serve a specific purpose within BG III itself, which points to it being a choice that Larian themselves came up with. No, I think Larian can shoulder the blame for this one.

What really bugs me though is that this came about despite the characters being popular, *despite* Jaheria and Minsc getting comparatively the royal treatment. I can only speculate that this was allowed to happen because of some combination of the characters not having an advocate/fan on the writing staff or their immediate boss(es) This is not the sort of thing that would have been written by fans...if I'm being perfectly honest this is the sort of writing I'd expect from someone who *disliked* the character being involved. Which is bizarre, because Larian loves their complex victimized evil character party members-you'd think Viconia would be the sort of character they'd fall in love with, or at the very least if they were going in the direction they ended up going with, they'd go for a more nuanced and sympathetic villain than what we got in either case.

Last edited by Leucrotta; 28/09/23 06:13 AM.