Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion [END SPOILS WARNING] Addressing Karlach (PLEASE PUT SPOILERS IN TAGS)

Like, we've seen people saying that actually her storyline is great because it's a good representation of loving a terminally ill person and such - and I think in a vacuum most of us agree, it's heartbreakingly written and very well acted, it's the setting and the quest that bring some major disbelief in the mix. However, we've also seen actual people with heart problems come up and say that it feels bad to not be able to do anything even in a videogame.

We've talked about Thane from Mass Effect, whose condition is never a part of his quest and is just a fact (that Shepard can make peace with and romance him as such), and about V from Cyberpunk, whose whole game is exhausting all available options before the inevitable dawns on them. As mentioned, Karlach's situation is neither "you aren't even supposed to help, it's just life", nor "you can fight for her with all you've got", it's in the middle, and it's frustrating.

HOWEVER. Hers is also a tragedy on top of a tragedy. V, Thane, some suddenly killed off characters like Joel, they've all lived. When we meet Karlach, even before we know she's dying, her story is already screwed up enough. Sold, mutilated against her will, forced to fight in a war for 10 years with no companionship or touch, all that good stuff. By the time we (as a friendly Tav or such) learn of her story we're already pissed and hurt on her behalf much like when Astarion opens up about his. Her life up to that point is already incredibly tragic.

So when you stick a terminal inevitable illness on top of that, you get not just a character dying after a life full of experiences and mistakes and whatever, you get a dying character who hasn't even been living for the last decade. That's somewhat - not directly, but somewhat comparable to kids and teenagers dying. Not to infantilize Karlach, of course. I mean this in the same way Sam means it when she talks about Karlach regressing to the age she was last herself at, which is no older than 18 by their estimate. Because she doesn't have any proper living experience past that point. So in terms of, you know, looking at some teenager's grave and instinctively thinking "Shit, man, you haven't even lived..." - that's approximately the same painful note that's present there when you look at Karlach. She isn't just losing her life, she loses it almost immediately after not having had it for a decade.

And sure, some people are sick from birth and never grow up, and that's also a real existing tragedy (regardless of if 'real' tragedies even fit in d&d), but we know that Karlach was a healthy kid, we know that her condition is manmade - even if it wasn't, however... An adult dying before their time after having lived a life is a tragedy. A person dying before they even get to live properly is an even heavier tragedy. By itself.

And all that weight (which is harsh enough for a lot of people) is dropped on top of an already sufficiently enraging story that makes us rally for her. An unfairness that technically can be compared on an emotional level to a teenager dying is attached to a very much adult woman already robbed of her life prior to that. It's not just a tragedy, it's a double tragedy sandwich, maybe even triple. That's not just 'what a relationship with a terminally ill person feels like', that's a traumatized ex-slave with CPTSD and a huge gap in lived experience (which is already more than enough on one person) who is also, on top of that, dying tomorrow. That's a conscripted teenager coming back from war as a traumatized adult vet and dying in a ditch because no meds were made available to them.

With her only other option being "get MORE traumatized and CONTINUE to grow that gap in your lived experience - but this time a person you care about will do it with you (you don't want a person you care about to go through that ever)".

That's a little bit too much of a "real life" for one videogame character in a fairytale world, don't you think.

And then on top of that her quest lacks. On top of that her friends and/or lover aren't doing squat for some reason (they're getting railroaded). One of her abusers dies in the most anticlicmatic fight of all boss fights in the game and the other is never addressed, period. We aren't even doing justice to her past trauma, let alone the ongoing one.

Like, Karlach is right. "It's enough! It's ENOUGH." What happened to her was already enough of a tragedy. And because of specifics of that tragedy (not living for 10 years) the second one (dying) feels ever worse than it would if she was, like, an adventurer of the same age who at the very least had her time under the sun.