I've been following the thread for few day now but decided to add my opinion. I don't quite understand the thread and the whole discussion, you guys got entire patch dedicated just for you, what else do you want? Karlach's story is great, it's all about making peace with the inevetable and making best of your remaining life. She gets her revenge on Gortash and now can spend her last moments with you (or whoever she romanced if you're not playing Tav) and it's beautiful, why would you want to dimnish the narration with some last second miracle or whatever? That would take away the impact of the story and cheapen it
What we want is to be able to affect what happens to Karlach. As it stands, you can't. The only choices that truly matter for her story are at the pier -- the very end.
Karlach's questline is incredibly short when compared to the other origin characters -- two fetch quests and a boss fight that you need to do anyway. Meanwhile, the others get entire zones, dedicated bosses, and decently long questlines.
As for her revenge, her speech right after killing Gortash spells out how empty that vengeance was for her. She is at her lowest point at that moment, having realized it's all hopeless, and killing him did nothing.
Her last meaningful moment with you after that is her burning up at the pier. That's not beautiful, it's horrifying. She's seconds away from bursting into flame, and you have to decide if you let her die or if she goes back to the place she so desperately wanted to escape.
Even if you believe that her story is about acceptance, that's not what you do most of the time. You spend most of your time with her hunting for a solution, rather than living it out. Karlach herself doesn't come to terms with her situation until after confronting Gortash.
Stories about acceptance like the Fault in Our Stars don't waste time hoping for a solution, they give the characters closure and quality time with each other before they meet their end. We barely have any quality time with Karlach and any semblance of closure by killing Gortash is rendered meaningless because it changed nothing.
What truly cheapens her story is that it's a tragedy that's forced upon us. We're not even allowed to try and fail to help her. We just watch from the sidelines. Isn't this game supposed to be about choices and weaving your own fate? Where is that for Karlach?
The bigger problem, however, is that none of what's happening to her is believable in a DnD setting. You have to go out of your way to stop any potential solutions from being available. What's the point of the Gondians, the enriched infernal iron, all the magic, gods, and demons? You're not allowed to pursue any of them. How Gale was saved was quite literally an act of god, yet his story wasn't cheapened because of it.
Given how lacking Karlach's content is, it will take more than one patch for her to even feel like an origin character, rather than a secondary recruit. She and Wyll got the short end of the stick.
I agree with this so very strongly that I logged back in just to reply with support.
Really, we’re given so many options with other characters…our actions can very seriously change the entire trajectories of the lives of these people, except Karlach who we can just pat on the back.
Plus…as you said, DND is full of deus ex machina workarounds. Is there literally no dwarf in all the city who’s just a little more skilled than Damon, and could this permanently fix her engine?
Can’t Akabi, a literal genie, just wish her engine fixed as a reward for winning his dumb game?
I’ll stop at those two examples because I’ll flood the thread with all the possibilities. If some players like tragedy, I support that, let them choose a tragic ending for any of the characters; for the rest of us, we could also have a fluffy ending choice and that wouldn’t restrict anyone else’s choices.
