Originally Posted by Conrad Curze
Of course it would dimnish the whole narration. Her entire story is about making peace with inevetable end, so fixing it at the last moment kinda throws away the entire arc. The whole avernus ending is very anti climatic for me and I think it shouldn't be an option but I understand that Larian wanted to give her something hopeful. She's the perfect tragedy because sometimes there is no good ending but at least she can become mindflayer and be the hero of her beloved city. I just can't understand why you guys have problem with that, it's a great piece of narration.

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The Gondians don't have the solution because her engine is too old, that's literally the line of the Steel Watcher and it's logical they can't fix her because they shouldn't be able to without some bullshit deus ex machinas. I'll also repeat myself, it were the demons that enslaved Karlach in the first place, why would she crawl back to them to likely be enslaved again and cheated by another contract?

Her entire story is about finding a cure for her problem, she doesn't start making peace with it until after Gortash. That's when her quest line ends. Up until then she still held onto hope.

So fixing the engine is very much in line with her arc -- you tried once, you failed. Dammon came up with nothing. She loses all hope for a solution after Gortash. But we don't. Through hard work and some heavy sacrifices, we do it. There's likely a big catch to her newfound situation, but at least there's hope now.

Avernus perhaps feels anticlimactic to you because we didn't ease into it. If we could actually slowly nudge her throughout the game, it would've felt more natural. But the two options -- dying or going back -- are totally valid. Her going back to Avernus is the story facing her with her biggest fear.

As for this idea that "sometimes there is no good ending" -- there has to be a good reason for any bad ending. It can't just be bad for its own sake. What is the narrator trying to impart to the player with her story? That's the most important question. Right now I'm struggling to find a good answer.

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Her engine is a prototype. The Gondians could replace it with the new version that can exist in this plane. But we can't know if they can or can't do that, because we're never given the chance to talk to them about it.

The Steel Watcher told her she was defective and needed to go back to the foundry to get fixed up. We can't pursue that line, either.