Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Please Larian, Rewrite or Delete [ACT 3 SPOILERS] (very long with spoilers)

Finally someone summarized my thoughts. Viconia and Sarevok's involvement in BG3 story is simply wrong. Retconning their backgrounds so heavily really feels bad and from part fictional.

Totally agree with OP in every line. And we are not alone in this.
Sarevok and Viconia was my favourites from old games. My first playthrough of BG1-2 took place in 2014 and it was love in first sight. Poor graphics faded into the background very soon: the story was perfect.

I loved how strong Viconia was against odds of her life. She was hard, complicated, not like open book. And an outcast, not part of any cult of Shar. Even isolated from the story of Gorion’s Ward (mine was female) she was definitely not the woman we met in BG3.
And Sarevok. Honestly he is one of my most loved characters ever, so I can be biased. But his portrayal in BG3 make me really quit game and go get some air. Still can’t come to my senses actually. See, even in Baldur’s Gate 1, game from the distant 1998, villains wasn’t so cartoon and full black. Yes, that maybe was not the time of gray morale, but some digging could give interesting results.
BG3 Sarevok is quite the opposite of Sarevok from old games. He was fiery and desperate, but never a mindless brute (really! He tried, but even couldn’t start a slaughter without a plot! sweet chaotic evil). And Sarevok was never the follower of Bhaal. He. Was. Never. He wanted father’s power, he got under the influence of his blood, but never worshipped. I think Tamoko was the one who explains everything very accurately: she said Sarevok’s desire for power spring from hatred and resentment. Like our Bhaalspawn main character, he was torn apart between his divine heritage and humanity, but fate was more cruel to Sarevok, so he get what he get.
After resurrection in ToB he loses any spark of Bhaal’s power. And started to think deeper. Redeeming is optional, but what was exactly - Sarevok asked for new life. He wanted to be revived very much, to get "flesh and blood and bones" again. Returning to life didn’t bring him peace, his ending tells about it, but to fall into worshipping dead god? The one he lost every tie with? It just makes no sense. Hate to say this, but he better be dead, really.

I don’t know how to speak about «respect for the past» cause it looks like… have you ever read fanfiction? The ones where author treats badly with characters they don’t like? This. BG3 has many detailed evil characters with motivation and personality, so we can’t say it’s about moralism and plain «bad is bad». Looks like these two is just very unloved by someone in Larian. It’s the only explanation I can think of.

And too sad to see liberation arcs of Astarion, Lae’zel, Shadowheart - they release from abuse, burden, control - but this right to be free was not given to Viconia and Sarevok.

Sorry for my English.

Yeah. There is no necessary name for those two characters Viconia and Sarevok anymore, they are completely rewritten characters. So whyn't Larian rename those two with another new name? I am confused.

Thank you friend, for your detailed and thoughtful input. I can understand your pain, that at some point in Act III, you just thought "what? wait...what?" then you wanted to skip certain parts, or simply couldn't continue playing. That happened to me too lol. And thanks for the insight about Sarevok, you have made me understand the characters better. I agree, he should remain dead if they gonna do him this way.

I can understand the frustration from BG1 & BG2 players, but I have to play devil's advocate here and say that as someone who's never played those, I'm genuinely sad that so much of act 3 has already been devoted to a returning cast over the origin companions and would be very disappointed if they added even more content for the returning cast over their own origin companions that we played with for over half of the game already.

If it were up to me, they'd never have been added. The game really didn't need to pull at nostalgia to be popular and instead it hurts fans of both scenarios, those who like the returning cast feeling they didn't get enough of a spotlight or simply the wrong type of content, and those who like the origin companions feeling like too much was already devoted to the returning cast.

Thank you friend!


Hey, you're not playing devil's advocate at all, I agree with you totally. Considering the rewriting, animating, and voice acting devs need to do, the simplest solution would be deleting these two from the game. You're right, the game itself is good enough, it doesn't need nostalgia, it can stand on its own feet. So let it, instead of this "lose-lose" situation we got now, that new players don't care and old players feel insulted.

And I agree with new characters need more attention, that's actually one of the main complaints over Act III, that companions' content is not enough. Imagine how much fun we would have if we could spend more time with, say, Karlach, or Lae'zel.

I won't say much because I don't think there is anything I can say that hasn't already been said. After seeing both Viconia and Serevok in BG3 it pretty much cemented my opinion that Larian didn't care much for BG1/2.

They made a solid Baldur's Gate game (seeing how it has Bhaal and the city in it) but a horrible sequel. Will they change it? Ehh I doubt it, which is a shame.

If you play the Goblin path to recruit Minthara, then you're already down 2 other Origin companions and 1 non tadpoled companion.

If you follow the beats as presented during the second part of Act II there's a good chance you lose Jaheira and 2 camp followers as well, unless you're trying to thread the needle through meta or want to deny Shadowheart what seems to be her whole character arc up to that point. Also requires the Tav or Durge to ignore a direct command from a major god in the Pantheon of the Realms. This during a point in the story where Shar is breaking with Myrkul (normally an ally) and speaks directly to the player and to Shadowheart. All the other gods are communicating via their Chosen or lesser representatives, whereas Shar tells us point blank what she wants us to do. This puts the player in a pretty awkward position of ignoring a major god in the pantheon to trust... Aylin? Aylin who nobody has ever heard of before, who wasn't strong enough to avoid being imprisoned by Balthazar, who (for an Aasimar) doesn't even look all that trustworthy... like ok who's a smart villain going to pick on that one? heheh

I actually liked how they set things up with Shar a lot. If you're playing as a villain or even a Durge, killing the Nightsong gives you a clear motivation and puts you on a team in the divine conflict. Sure it's all wrapped up with Shadowheart, but it works for everyone. Minthara approves, so maybe she's now a Paladin of Shar too? You know "By my oath!" like her bark says hehe. The whole team can rock the dark Justiciar armor and then it gives that pathline more purhcase. This would have been great material for a final showdown with Lolth too, Viconia running interference there, in classic fashion. The Spider queen's vengeance! Maybe we're all together in that fight, and Viconia has to die so that Shadowheart can surive, but that would be fitting and much a more cathartic send off.

Anyway, point being, the payoff for all this 'darkness' in the early game should be that we get Viconia and Sarevok as options to recruit in Act III, to makeup for all the stuff we lost out on in Acts I and II. I don't really care if Viconia is normally Evil, since that was the majority of my playthroughs in BG1/2, but I want her in the party so that she can be part of the reward along that path. This would make more sense to me, that along one path we get Jaheira and Minsc along the other we get Viconia and Sarevok. And if there's a needle to thread maybe it's for a way to get Jaheira and Viconia both back together along a more neutral-ish path. Perhaps if Shadowheart is blond we get another angle on it, sure, but I think that would have been a nice treatment. Anything that stops short of Viconia's recruitment into the party is going to feel like a tease and a bummer for me.

Ps. Even though I suggested the doppelganger option in the other thread as a way for the player to telegraph their displeasure and sidestep the issue, I don't think Larian can really delete stuff at this point. The game is already out. It exists in the world now. At this point they can only add, not subtract or change. Keep the default path, but include more options if they player pushes back on it. All this could probably be handled with a dialogue branch that actually branched, once the big reveal happens. Let the player tell the game what they're after via initial dialogue prompts, and then have the subsequent character presentation key off that, so we can get a thumb on the scale there.

This is still my favorite visualization for Viconia...


https://www.artstation.com/artwork/eawONX

But the BG3 default is pretty cool too... and I love the VA!





Just let us hold the reigns here, with a way to get her back into the fold again, and I'd be very happy. Then we can do our own mini-rewrites via gameplay and have the just deserts we're after. Let the player do the heavy lifting on that one, just add another branch or two.

You realize that we also would prefer them to not have been added rather than butchered like this ?
I am just disgusted by what Larian has made here. What's even the point of claiming you love a serie and wants to make the follow-up, if it's to just mangle the cameo and distort them into something that not only they never were, but which is even downright anathema to their original character ? Who could have actually played BG1+2 and thought this parody would fly ? This leaves a terrible taste in my mouth and the feeling that Larian was just throwing BS and didn't wanted to follow-up on a serie they liked, but rather to spit on a serie they wanted to one-up.

I want to believe Larian cares, I do, well, at least they claimed they do when publicizing the game. I don't know whether they would change anything either, but hey, one man can hope...

"Somehow, Palpatine returned..."

I haven't confirmed this for myself, but saw someone report that the mace you find if you kill Viconia in BG3 is the same one you can only get during her romance in BG2 . . . If true, way to rub salt in the wound I guess? I get the feeling one of the writers genuinely disliked Viconia and her fans, which uh . . . If you're going to bring a popular character back, might as well put someone in charge of that character who actually understands/enjoys her. I could be wrong and it could have been ignorance or WotC meddling, but the narrative malice towards Viconia in BG3 is jarring to me.

Edit: just confirmed it's the same mace (Handmaiden's Mace).

Thanks celestielf.


I can't confirm this right now but if that's true...wow. I mean that's no longer a genuine mistake like "oh we were not familiar with these two characters so we just believed whatever WotC told us tehe", no, they played the old games, they recorded the details, and yet they still chose to retcon characters this way, spitting on them and old players' faces. I mean what even...is that you Neil Druckmann? Did you infiltrate Larian using Disguise Self spell?

I need to take some time to grab the details myself. But Oof, another reason to not play Act III. Still, thank you for the input.

Hmm..reading all this...it may be an unpopular opinion here, but I think both characters are OK. That is, well within the range of plausibility for most players of the old games, who after all did not romance Viconia or turn Sarevok in BG2/TOB. And I have played the old games so often over the years that I feel somewhat competent to make a judgment.

If anything, Viconia's being a cleric of Shar, which she always was, played so small a role in BG2 that *that* part felt strange at times when I played the old games. Sure, she had an acerbic wit about her which is now missing, but only with her companions, which we are not in BG3. Her status and actions appear perfectly plausible to me, and any difference that remains can be accounted for by the passing of time.

Regarding Sarevok, assuming that you allowed him to return to life in TOB, it was always a possibility that he would return to his old ways. In TOB, he says that's in the past for him but only because you've won. And since in this timeline, Gorion's Ward did not survive, that no longer applied. I don't think they should've brought him back at all, because after all he was human, so his still being alive and being able to fight seems strange, but I am not seeing any character mismatch beyond anything that can't be accounted for by the passing of time.

It has been 130 years after all. And one specific timeline which may or may not match any of ours as created through the old games.

It would've been nice to have both available as companions for an evil playthrough but then, it has always been the case that the evil path, being generally less popular, gets less attention in development. BG3, for all the resources put into it, is no exception.

Use your imagination.

Now... you could argue that Viconia went back to her old ways or was brought back to life by Shar... Who knows.

I did tweak my head cannon of the D. Urge backstory to fit it with my story that he was the son of my main character (an elf) from BG3. I simply considered the version of the Butler to be pure manipulation to make him feel special. And maybe he was as his father was a very strong Bhaalspawn. Naturally, this Abdel Arian is just one more hero in my headcannon.


I personally found Viconia consistent with the Viconia I knew from BG1 and BG2. She is still one of my favourite character of the franchise and I let her go (my character let her go out of drow solidarity). I felt nothing for Sarevok in particular. I can't say I was very happy to see him back from the grave in BG2 but I could endure it

P.S. It would have been great if we got something for letting Viconia go.

Thanks. I feel like I might need to repeat my arguement here. The character assassination in BG3 has nothing to do with whether players do these two characters' romance/redemption or not. For example, you mentioned Sarevok, that "he would return to his old ways". What old ways? The way that he never treated Bhaal seriously? The way he called Bhaal a "fool"? Or the way he wanted to replace him? The same goes with Viconia. These two characters, even when they were in or before BG1, were still totally different from them in BG3. Plus, Shar clerics were different, even Bhaal fanatics were different, remember those?

And I don't think "it has been 130 years after all" is an excuse if you want to do characters 180, the basic logic of this line feels like "well I don't care about those characters so whatever". And judging from the feedback on other websites, many old players still care, sorry but I don't think you can represent most players of the old games. But still, I appreciate your opinion.

Thank you. Now please imagine this:

In BG4, you meet the new demon lord Karlach in Nine Hells, a dear friend of Zariel. And the game tells you that her courage, pure heart, and kindness were all a facade in BG3, she is actually a very mean and evil person, who loves to kill and torture people, and always adores Zariel. The justification the game gives are "use your imagination" and "you could argue that Karlach went back to her old ways...who knows".

Allow me to ask again, what old ways?

Karlach being a golden retriever, Viconia refusing to hurt a child, and Sarevok treating Bhaal as simply a stepping stone, those were literally their origin stories, their very foundations. A bloodthirsty Karlach never existed, the writer made that shit up. And when a game needs you to use your headcanon to justify things, that means it was poorly written.

Of course one could say "well I never cared about Karlach so whatever", which is fair, though personally I won't call that person is really familiar with Karlach's character.

I do understand, that you are mad about Viconia and Sarevok, but both are still different cases from Karlach. Kalrach was always good, Viconia and Sarevok not. You could maybe compare it with Astarion, who starts pretty evil, but can become better during the game depending on how you progress his story.

Thank you fylimar, I'm not mad at this point, just a bit tired...but your idea is fantastic. I used Karlach as an example because she's popular so I thought it would be easier for people to understand, but you're right, maybe Astarion will be a better example. Now, of course Astarion is not typically "good" in BG3, but I think nobody can deny that he is complex, and charming. Same goes with Viconia and Sarevok. Astarion may choose ascension in the end, or he may not, I can accept both as his canon ending in BG4.

However imagine this, in BG4 the game tells the player that Astarion never hated Cazador, actually, he never wanted freedom, it was all a facade. The writer retcons one of his ending, saying Astarion chose to ascend because Cazador ordered him to, and he failed, what a super smart mind game. Now Astarion becomes a mini-boss the player needs to defeat before facing the real Cazador 2.0. (Actually it's really similar now I think about it.) That's what they did to old characters like Viconia and Sarevok.

Astarion's hate for Cazador is just like Karlach's kindness, it's in character foundation and has nothing to do with player's journey, same goes with some qualities of Viconia and Sarevok. It's not about characters being good or bad, it's about what kinds of persons they truly were. I hope this would be a better example.

I believe Tomato is using hyperbole to show their point. They aren't directly comparable, but the gist is that a hypothetical BG4 could 'plausibly' rewrite the characters we love from BG3 into something like the unsympathetic characterization hit-pieces that Saraevok and Viconia got saddled with by Larian. And that would be wrong, just as Viconia and Saraevok's treatment was.

Like sure, we can imagine scenarios where Wyll turns out to be jaded and bitter after BG III, his morality is eroded, and we see him some 30 years later in a followup game as a corrupt politician lining his pockets with bribes from criminals. Then we find out that one of our companions was enslaved by his criminal underlings and we finally meet him in an emotional confrontation where all of his crimes against our companions, against the city, etc are laid out and we find him unrepentant. Cue boss battle.

IDK if you find that a 'plausible' scenario or not, but either I think you can probably imagine one where a party member from BG III is turned into an unsympathetic antagonist we get to fight in some followup.

But point of the matter, no matter how 'plausible' such a turn would be, it would be a huge disservice, a betrayal of the character and their fans to do so. For a game ostensibly focused on nostalgia and fanservice regarding the original games, such a portrayal is really, really awful.