Originally Posted by SerTomato
[size:14pt]First let me say I still adore BG3, as a crpg fan I’m really, really glad to see a studio is still making crpg with 3A standards in 2023. I think BG3’s art style, soundtrack, voice acting, cutscenes, and gameplay are all phenomenal, it’s absolutely my GOTY before Act III.

“You became my mission. To take a child of Selune's, and turn her over to Lady Shar. To show all light fades, and darkness will prevail in the end.” —BG3 Viconia[/font]

Turns out Viconia was the sole reason for Shadowheart’s broken family and decades of suffering. Such wow. Remember how she refused to sacrifice a child to Lolth, bearing the exile and the pain her action caused? Forget it, now she’s a professional child kidnapper, she abducted many children, abused and brainwashed them, she even had a 24/7 torture room, full of bones, blood, and gore. Remember how she resented Lolth for what she did to her brother, how she couldn’t help but missed and felt guilty for him? Great, now she also imprisoned children’s parents and relatives, tortured them, made them suffer the eternal torment her brother suffered, she would even let kids do her job sometimes. Why did she do all these, you ask? Remember even when she was dragged to the sacrifice altar, in fear and about to be killed, she still chose to defy and curse Lolth’s name?

“Lady Shar commanded me. And I obeyed. I do not question - I merely act as she wills me to.” —BG3 Viconia

The writer even had the audacity to retcon one of Viconia’s endings, saying how she wiped out the Shar cult was not a rebellious act, but a super smart big brain move to prove she’s the bestest cruelest Shar cultist of all time. I can’t even describe the disgusted feeling after I completed Shadowheart’s storyline. This “Viconia” shares no common point with any version of true Viconia, I even suspected she was one of Orin’s changelings when I met her. A once complex character, who was flawed but had many heroine’s, even motherly qualities, now was reduced to an almost laughable villain of the week, with a vile mustache and no depth.

The writer who wrote this part, were you on drugs? Were you fucking high? I was even impressed because even if you threw your ink bottle on your drafts, the character won’t be this completely 180.

I mean, it's almost like Shar is the kind of Goddess that manipulates and isolates her followers until she is all they have and then takes perverse delight in getting them to compromise whatever values they might have still had.

Also Viconia would never assess her targets, then lie to manipulate them, right?

Tywin Lannister's most insightful line about Cersei Lannister is this "She makes honest feelings do dishonest work"

Viconia is a liar, don't believe anything she says. She sees you as lesser and has no compunction about lying to you. She gets you to compromise your values over and over again just to "be with her" - starting with the murder of a Flaming Fist officer.

Blackheifer