Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Karlach's Plot Device (mild, early spoilers)

Although I like the character of Karlach and I think her actor did a wonderful job helping to bring her to life, I can't get over her primary plot device: her heart.

We find out early on that Karlach has had her heart replaced with an 'infernal engine'. I had no idea what that was, but thought: "Surely it wouldn't be something as ridiculous as a demonic V8 pounding away in her chest. Right? Right?"

I went about googling and all I found were pictures of infernal war machines, basically swords and sorcery dark fantasy tanks of various shapes and sizes. Combine that with Dammon the Smith's mention of piston rings and oil etc etc and it really did appear that this was written to be a literal machine engine of some kind. And that...just seems like a bafflingly lame idea.

I mean, I understand that this is a fantasy series and the writers have included all sorts of utterly ridiculous concepts and conceits, but there are points where the 'silly' gets so much as break any sense of drama or immersion. Karlach's heart is one of places where the writing team did this for me.

So, a question for those more familiar with the lore: Am I misunderstanding the nature of an infernal engine? Is this plot point not as ill-conceived as I take it?

I'd be happy to hear a clarification, as Karlach herself is so wonderfully charismatic.

Cheers.

I don't understand the problem. In real life, artificial hearts exist. In BG3, robot technology is more advanced than in real life. Why would Karlachs heart be very silly then? And as a dramatic plot device, I think it works. Having a friend or lover who is destined to die soon is dramatic.

There are plenty of things that take the sillyness much, much further. People with lizard heads for example. Or invisibly carrying stuff that should require a big removal van. Nobody but your party using the big bright teleportations portals that are everywhere...

No no, it is infact the case that Karlach has a literal engine for a heart.

Zariel used her as an experiment to see if replacing a heart with one of her infernal engines would work. Which it did. It enhanced her power greatly and could be supercharged with Soul Coins to produce even more power.

Keep in mind that it's not just a simple engine, but one that runs off of magical energies and fantasy materials (Which is partially why there's this need to service it more frequently when outside the plane of Avernus leading to Karlach's story arc)

It might seem a little ridiculous, but that just reflects upon Zariel herself. She doesn't think of people as people, but as mere tools. So why not replace a part in a tool for a better one that would make it more effective?

Honestly, it's more of a surprise that this sort of thing isn't more common. Since Zariel isn't the only one developing technologically advanced machinery, there's constructs like Bernard and the Steel Watch that exist, the idea of replacing limbs/organs with more effective machinery is not a particularly wild idea (We see this in real life with prosthetic limbs while games such as Cyberpunk 2077 take such a concept further) so it's strange that only Zariel seems to be experimenting with it with her infernal engines.

Indeed. Well, the game does have prosthetic eyes, and Malus Thorm did not shy away from artificial limbs, but yes, there are many avenues of man-machine grotesqueness left unexplored.

Points taken.

I guess where I shut down is not that Karlach was experimented on or that people can have mechanical or magical augmentation; it's this particular choice of device. From what little I know of infernal engines, this sounds like taking the powerplant out of a full size battle tank and somehow stuffing it into someone's chest. (Permanent shrinking enchantment?) I dunno. I can buy into a lot of fantasy leaps of logic and faith, but for some reason this is one I can't get into.