I think that the people interviewed probably just were not deeply involved in those characters or emotionally attached to those characters. Probably if you talk to the individual writers, who got deep into those characters, you would’ve gotten a more compassionate response. That’s the problem with hearing from the people who are at the top, but not necessarily involved in the gritty details.
I'd honestly welcome any of larians writing staff that was involved with karlachs story to give me any kind of answer as to why they made the most likable companion have a grimdark ending. I've been lo9king high and low and the only reason I've seen so far from a fan no less isn't good enough. As far as I've seen larian just wanted to bait fans into liking karlach and tease a fix in baldurs gate. Then Completely ignore every single gondian, enriched infernal iron, house of hope, or any of the other plot holes that exist around her act 3 story. They then proceeded to say ok ignore all of the reasons in universe and in game that karlach could be saved and pick whether karlach dies alone on the dock burning alive, or gets to give up her soul, personality, being, everything to save people who couldn't be fucked to help her. They baited us all into loving karlach then said nope she's not getting saved now pick how she dies. Its cheap writing from a 14 year old in some bad dnd homebrew where you kill a loved npc for shock value.
