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 will still stand by my opinion that it's good tragedy in any other setting than high fantasy. It just does not work here, when there are too many ways to help. In low fantasy setting, sure. Real world setting? Definitely. Even in sci-fi? Absolutely. In DnD & high fantasy? No.

It can work if you explain WHY we can't help, considering all the options. Currently it's just because the "writer said so".

i see your point but i have to point out shadowheart was taken as a child, brainwashed and indoctrinated into a cult for the purpose of a dark goddedd. astarion[my vampire lore knowledge is rusty at best sorry] as far as i can recall was more or less forced into what happened with cazador since cazador was so much more powerful than astarion him standing up to him wouldve led to him just getting killed, tortured, or both. Gale on the other hand was the muse of the goddess of magic and in spite of her saying to be content and just chill out he went and delved into stuff he knew nothing about and pissed her off. im not saying he commited a great crime i wont claim that but compared to every other origin gale more than earned his punishment atleast from my point of view.

The trope can work in a different story setting. However, in this game and with karlach it just feels needlessly cynical to present her as the energetic sweetheart who doesn’t get cured and only gets bad endings. It doesnt congeal with the rest of the story’s/characters themes of changing fate/fighting the impossible, and just feels very out of place in the context of what world the story is set in. Not even allowing the player to pursue options to curing her is super frustrating too, it all feels very forced.

Its just a shame cos with how insanely good her voice actors performance was, it would’ve been so great to give karlach a more substantial story to explore instead of being railroaded into a tropey ''innocent character gets a cruel ending'' story. It couldve been a cool dungeon questline like a section in avernus, questline with the gondians or just anything to expand and branch out her story (like most other companions get, hell even dark urge).

That all being said, the new epilogue bringing hope to the avernus ending is nice, and arguably shows the devs are aware now that a doomer-ending for karlach sucks lmao. Just a shame that its unknown if we’ll ever get to explore the avernus/forge heist story, that would have made for an infinitely more interesting questline for karlach than the one we have now.

im gonna have to hard disagree with that statement, larian said this party is pretty edgy why not add this upbeat happy go lucky girl who in spite of being in the worst situation out of the whole group is still the happiest and loving life the most.
then another dev was like " but what if we made her die at the end lol" its honestly shit writing on their part. I wish Samantha beart(i hope im spelling that right) did a bad job so i wasnt so invested in karlach but she did a stellar job from start to finish and that is what makes it worse. the writing team as far as i can tell from the most recent IGN interview wanted to make the whole ending for karlach a pure grimdark trauma bait ending. its one the laziest tropes and has no place in a game thats whole claim to fame is its insane level of player impact on the story. you can be a genocidal maniac and kill everyone on a mad lust for power through the whole game but you cant take enriched iron and save karlach? you cant talk to the gondians about her engine? i cant track down powerful wizards and come up with a solution? nope her default ending was burn up or mindflayer.
kneecap is right as well, put karlachs story in any other setting with a linear story to tell and she is a masterpiece without question. id compare it to cyberpunk again with davids ending, it is perfect and the show itself is an amazing story that has 0 fat you need each episode and scene and you cant add a second season. But this is DND, Gales atom bomb is some quick fix why isnt karlachs overheating engine? Its just bad writing at the end of the day

this 100% though im still convinced we will see some avernus stuff either in dlc or DE but i think we'll get her fix finally with that piece of content.

Exactly, the lack of possibility to fix the engine is so frustrating when you have all solutions all around you. If DE will return back Avernus or Upper city with all her content, it will be big win.

Mystra was Gale's muse, not the other way around. And the "just be content" is easier said than done, if you have literally nothing else in your life but that one passion / your job and have a feeling that you just aren't good enough. (Very relatable.) They all are shaped by the environments in which they grew up or lived in and Astarion and Gale are especially messed up by this. In a way it's poetic. The guy who's ambition brought him all kinds of misery can use the burden this ambition placed on him to destroy all the instruments of human/illithid ambition (brain and crown) in one swoop, or he can redirect his ambitions and live a fuller life in which he uses his gift to help those around him. (Or he become a god, but I am not too fond of that ending.) Either way, Gale of Waterdeep dies that day.

But I am cluttering Karlach's thread with how much I like Gale. ^^

Also I didn't say, that Karlach's situation is theoretically unfixable, just that if they wanted that big dramatic tear-jerker at the end of the story (which apparently they did, maybe? At least it sounds like it.) they set it up like that efficiently. I also agreed that I am surprised that they apparently didn't consider that this wouldn't go down well with the people who like her - who are many because they made her very loveable.

I wouldnt say its just becauae ppl find her loveable. Her characters personality was definately what drew me to her as Love interest and companion. But honestly its just the shitty ending options that infuriates me. Like...you just legit cannot tie up her questline loose end. Mindflayer option is death. Blowing up is death. Going back to hell is just extremely depressing and odd as a narrative choice based on how the dialogue goes throigh out the game. And the kicker is. All 3 of these options are in no way affected by your choices as a player in her qusstline or otherwiss.

So maybe im in the minority but for me its not JUST her being likeable and wanting to save her. Its also the very glaring difference in her story to the other characters..
Even wyll who had to be re written new VA and less dialogue then karlach, still has several fitting ending paths. AAANNDD they gave him a path to get the best of both worlds IF the player is clever enough to find it. Thats the shit i love about this game. Not some tragic terminal illness acceptance of death thing. But problems presented to be explored and solved In differemt ways. The whole game from act 1 through act 3 is stuffed full of events and choices presented to the player that change the games feel and path forward and the devs did an amazing job in that. ....so then looking at karlach its like...what in the actual hell guys. *ending she deserves* -*we always pictured her burning up on the docks* like is this suppose to be a joke? I feel like im taking crazy pills lol

No you're right. The whole point of the game outside of karlachs story is fighting against crazy long odds for a chance of victory and achieving it in spite of the odds. The other companions all have hopeful endings that leave the player feeling good about where they'll end up.

Karlachs story as larian wanted to tell it was some doomer ideal of yea she's gonna die so try all you want it wont matter cause there's nothing you can do.

It's either really lazy writing, or blatant and pointless trauma baiting on the part of the directors and writers. It feels like a gut punch compared to what the rest of the game tries to convey to the player.

Then larian has the audacity to come out and flaunt the games open ended nature, player driven story, and then just leave karlach as a railroaded forced death for the sake a reaction from the player. I'm with you I feel like I'm going crazy reading how they thought her ending should be burn alive on this dock while all your friends get to live on and don't try to save you. It's maddening I hate this so much

I'm gonna go against the grain here and say that for the moment at least I'm satisfied with what we have. My biggest complaint, wayyyyy back at the beginning of this thread was that her story is hopeless no matter what you do. There was no implication about what going back to Avernus was like, so we were either left with death, kind of death, or potentially eternal slavery under a vengeful Zariel. Now we have two things that we didn't have before with the addition of the epilogues: not only is there hope, but she's HAPPY. That's honestly all I wanted. I'm not saying I wouldn't love a potential DLC where we finally ACTUALLY fix the Hellion's Heart, but what we have is pretty damn special.

Which also goes into my other point, I don't read the article as them being flippant about Karlach at all. Guys, we got an entire epilogue with Karlach where we rampage across the hells together, and we both clearly are having the time of our lives (I think its Shadowheart who mentions that we look happier than we did during our travels in Faerun). They did that for us, they did it not only because we asked, but because it bothered us so much they completely scrapped their original idea of just her dying on a dock. They obviously care about what we feel, since they spent time and money to give us at least some closure.

Would I prefer that fix we her engine in game? Absolutely. But I think we should also acknowledge how great it is we have what we have.

Yea it's a major win from what we had a few months back and it's a very hopeful ending. I'll be 100 percent honest I've avoided the cinematic and everything about the epilogue other than the information about the forge. I'm almost done with my first playthrough but works been crazy the past 2 weeks. I'm happy larian listened to some extent but it's still a far cry from what they needed to do with karlach. Im still looking for an avernus type dlc or a DE expansion that goes into an avernus dungeon to the forge.

I'll have to disagree though on the statements in the article. From the way they spoke about her arc and endings it was clear they never put any real thought into her character past a gimmicky "Oh look the happy go lucky girl dies of terminal hell cancer". It's cheap and just doesn't fit at all with the rest of the game or it's vibe of fighting against insurmountable odds. I can't say why they chose to give us sort of hope with the epilougue instead of just giving a fleshed out act 3 fix. But like I said I think it comes down to larians writers wanting shock value out of karlach and that's what they got.

The lead writer and Sven is wrong. What they didn't anticipate is how popular Karlach would become + no one is buying their reasons ( which I would call it lies ) that Karlach ending was not cut.
The removal of upper city made act 3 bad. All the quests in Act 3 seems half baked. It is quite telling in the difference of quality.

If anything, they now must consider doing making an ending for Karlach and restore the upper city.
Most people would disagree with me, but Baldar Gate 3 is a 2/3 finished product. The last 1/3 is still badly done and from my personal view, Larian winning game of the year shows the quality of competition there is, rather than the quality of the game.

I do find problem with lead writer reasoning that the whole theme is what you would give to save the world because the possibilities of not becoming a mindflayer were always there, but the game bend your arms to make a choice you could avoid.
Perhaps it is time to find better writers who doesn't force arm players.

Yeah i hesitate to say they are lying as I really do like Larian as a company and swen seems like a really down to earth guy.

But the upper city comment about it being * fully explorable* was literally less then a month before release. To say tgere was no cut content just seems disingenuiine. They even came out and sddressed the data mining not saying things werent* cut. But that all games get things cut. Like i can respect that.
But telling me that act 3 at launch was the *intended * version...come on. Its chock full of content i will not argue that. But like Dutch says it all felt half finished

I'm not sure what to make of the interview. Them saying act was as planned with 0 cut content is completely wrong even by their own statements. I forgot about the data mining and their response. The whole interview makes me feel like some twilight zone shit. I mean theyre changing their story completely from a few months ago its wild.

It's not cut content if they never got around to adding it. I think that's what happened -- stuff that they planned for just didn't get made.

Maybe they made a few assets here and there, like enriched infernal iron but, in the end, that never really got anywhere.

So they're likely telling the truth. However, that doesn't change the fact that two fetch quests and a boss fight are a far cry from anything that they would consider a fleshed-out questline.

Yeah, this sounds like a possibility. They "don't lie", but it is very very very close to lie. "Removed or not added" content were Avernus and Upper city, two most important locations for Karlachs story (Avernus for sure, and Upper city if we accept the theory, that her quest should end there). Imagine both locations made it into the final game, maybe this thread will no exist at all. I'm sure, if these locations are in the game, Damon and Gondians have new dialogs about fixing the heart using enriched infernal ore, which is now useless. Also Mizora could have some solution with Avernus.


But what I don't buy at all, it that the released act 3 was completed and they wanted it that way. This is a lie for sure.

Absolutely. I'm content with what we have. All I wanted was for hope to fill her eyes again, and I got what I wanted. Thank you, Larian!

However, a lot of people here, from the beginning, wanted to see her made whole again in-game. They wanted to work for her happiness, and they felt like their voices still hadn't been heard.

I don't think there are many people here who aren't grateful for how much Larian has done for Karlach. They didn't have to do anything even remotely like that, and the game would've still been in as good a shape with the wider fanbase as it was before. So we know they care.

The interview let us know that the writers saw her story as one of tragedy, and it seems to me that if there hadn't been such a big outcry about it, she would've been left as she was. She was intended to be expendable, to be used up in the story and then destroyed at the end. Understandably, that upset people.

But she does have internal conflict. She's torn apart by her desire to live and her fear of Avernus. This comes to a head during her post-Gortash-fight rant and leads into your descent to Avernus. As much as she talks about wanting to go out on her terms, as much as she says she'd rather die than go back to hell, deep down she regrets not being able to live out a full life. She tells you as much in that rant.

It's just that there aren't enough moments like this to more smoothly transition her into accepting a return to Avernus as a choice that she makes for herself. This way, her character arc goes something like this:

An unwilling soldier desperate for freedom hitches a ride on a passing ship away from the battlefield. But freedom is never free, and she soon realizes that her time is limited. She's destined to die unless she goes back. The soldier frantically looks for a solution to her terminal problem. While there is some hope in the beginning, failure after failure forces her to come to terms with her eventual fate.

Refusing to go back to the battlefield, she decides to take revenge on the man who sold her out and then die on her own terms. But when she strikes him down, after the adrenaline rush recedes, she realizes that this changed nothing. She laments how empty her revenge felt and how unfair it was that her life was stolen from her. She admits to you and to herself that, after all, she does want to live. Yet, at that point, you've done all you can to no avail.

Time is running out. After defeating the big bad, she has one last chance to choose between facing her fears or dying then and there. Realizing that fate wouldn't allow her to simply run away from her problems, she chooses to face them head-on for her own sake. She goes back to the battlefield but this time she's not alone. She finally has people who care for her and who believe her life is worth living.

There's your character arc right there. Throughout her story, she gains the conviction to face her deepest fears. That arc exists right now, they just need to flesh it out more.

As it stands, going back to Avernus is a choice that we make for her at the last minute. Mind you, that choice was always there since launch day, it just didn't have a cinematic and, for some reason, Wyll was the one to go with her regardless if you romanced her.

I have had her in my party again for a bit recently and it has made me painfully aware how much the game tries to shove her into the spotlight. She is the only character everyone expresses concern for, she gets a lot of little moments to make you feel for her, she gets dramatic or likability moments at the expense of other characters and she's even got the specially modified romance scenes. If there is any character in this game who does not need any more attention, it's Karlach. If that whole journey to acceptance turns into content that allows poor Wyll to properly shine, I am all for it though. The boy needs some love and some stuff to do.

Besides, the want to live is part of every character's heap of troubles in this game, even excluding the tadpoles for some. But at some point the basic question of survival changes into an exploration of what a liveable life looks like usually by putting previously held believes or wishes to the test. Following your story, Karlach's conflict is just a second "Find a cure" quest, nothing about her perception of the world gets drastically challenged in any way. The only thing she might learn is, that Hell does not necessarily mean to be alone - which could tie in nicely into "after all what is Hell without Hope" if you want to give it a super nice evil twist.

That's an interesting take considering those small moments are pretty much all she has. She doesn't have a fleshed-out storyline, entire zones, whole chapters, and large subplots dedicated to her like the others do. If you take that away from her, what does she have left?

Following the arc that I outlined, finding the cure takes a whole different meaning. Survival and living are two different concepts. Now Karlach doesn't want to survive, she wants to live a fulfilling life. Because she didn't envision it before, she was ready to die, surviving only as far as it allowed her to accomplish her final goals -- to die free, and die a hero. It was the same for everyone else. They each had their own goals that they wished to survive long enough to accomplish. None of them, however, needed to be convinced that their life was worth living. Only Karlach.

Putting that aside, what changes about her perception of the world is that she now understands that she can't simply run away from hell and make it all better. She has to face her problems head-on. If it wasn't for us, she would've kept running until she died on the surface as she originally planned.