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

I'll just butt in to point out that Karlach is hardly comparable to Halsin 'cause if I remember correctly in EA our only interaction with her was the talk on that log we're now recruiting her at, she didn't participate in taking down the false paladins on account of being injured, and after we killed the guys she thanked us and just left.

(Went to look at the scene at YouTube and got jumpscared by a different voice, can't comprehend her without Sam)

One - in no way does that look like Halsin's situation, where he had his Act 1 arc pretty much fully present in EA, we talked to him, fought with him and so on (was he at the tiefling party? can't recall), and THEN people wanted more of him, so more was added (sorely felt when there's pretty much no content for him in Act 3, pretty obvious that he wasn't supposed to be there). What Karlach had is pretty much literally the bare bones of her current recruitment and then her content immediately stopped there - which has GOT to mean that it was a placeholder, that one talk couldn't have been the only thing planned for her.
Plus, despite the underwhelming personal quest, she does have some content in all three acts and a personal stake in all that's going on. Underdeveloped or screwed by cut content - yes, but she doesn't feel like she wasn't supposed to be there at all. She clearly fits.

Two - going from the previous point, those two dialogues we had with her EA version were hardly enough to make her a popular demand like with Halsin I don't think. An intrigue at best. I wasn't active much in BG3 fandom in the EA era, so someone tell me, were people talking about her so much that it called for a story role promotion? To an Origin no less, when the aforementioned Halsin just got to be a follower?

(Also those dialogues and her attitude seem to differ quite a bit from the final version, which, again, makes that scene more of a "In-progress-placeholder-that-got-changed-later", not Halsin's thing of building upon something already liked)

I think she's much more comparable to Wyll. Only he suffers from being almost completely rewritten after already having been a playable companion, and her turbulent development happened behind the scenes.

At some point in this thread someone correctly pointed out that none of her concept artwork (that we've seen) even features the engine glow or its valves, so it doesn't look like she was always meant to be doomed and dying either. Unless it was by some other means, I suppose.

(The funny thing is, if we're going the "A character/character's quest changed because of how popular they became" route, then Karlach has all the chances to go through that NOW. Which even makes some sense, seeing as she was barely in EA and didn't have that chance.)