Originally Posted by Auric
I'm aware she was at one point a worshipper of Lolth. But in the videogames she always worships Shar. In her default ending she kills other cultists but there is no mention of her own worship stopping. Any point at which she explicitly did not worship Shar is entirely prior to her introduction. There is never a clearly labelled point at which she stops, you know unless any ridiculous thing happens and she did and was kidnapped and re-indoctrinated for it between BG2 and 3, but that still seems a little out there compared to the Goddess that actively manipulates memories just kinda doin' her thing, or as I mentioned the gradual lore changes about divinity made the writers consider that her scope of worship didn't need to remain so narrow. Sure that's maybe an unsatisfying reason but I find it greatly interesting that as divinity rules change so too do the followers.

Again, I'm not arguing it wasn't a retcon. I'm saying it's not character assassination and that I don't see it as nearly so far removed from her original characterization as others. I see connective tissue both in-universe and in the meta-narrative changes to Dungeons and Dragons that have occurred in the intervening years.

1. Being a worshipper =/= being faithful, being a worshipper =/= not being rebellious. Even in WotC canon, Shar followers are far more complex than that, people worship Shar for many different reasons, many even have good intentions. You're arguing a different concept.

2. The random things you said that could happen were invented by you, not established by the game, you're writing for the writer.

3. Again, inaccurate memory. What the writer claimed was not Viconia was different because she was kidnapped or manipulated, but she was a different person from the very start. They not only retconned things she has been through, but also her motives.

In BG2 ending, she "slaughters them all when they betray her, shrugging off the chastisement of her goddess."

In BG3, the writer said she killed those cultists because she wanted to prove she's the bestest cultist to Shar. They literally changed her personality, therefore her original characterization was assassinated and it's character assassination. Can you understand this logic?