Viconia, although I suspect that she died more often than not in BG1 and BG2, still had some following as the resident edgelady. Hence her resurrection in BG2 (where you had 10-20 seconds to react to keep her alive) after saving her in BG1 (dialogue to prevent her summary execution for murder by LEO). As I vividly remember her battlecry of "Nightsinger, give me strenght!" the cracked faced angel in BG3 rubs me the wrong way.
One of the very best moments in BG2 for me that I will never forget is Viconia's death.
As a D&D noob, I had both Viconia and Kheldorn in my party. They squabbled as we went along, but my naive Cleric of Lathander thought it was ok as she was constantly smoothing things over. Then one day we were walking down the street, and Kheldorn just randomly gibs Viconia with Carsomyr. There was nothing left to resurrect.
I think the problem with Viconia's depiction, more than anything, is it simply seems, like...lazy and uninformed.
Like it's not a problem that she's evil, with no trace of her possible redemptive path. It's just that even "evil" Viconia in BG1 and BG2 was a more nuanced evil. Even if you KEPT her evil, she was still an evil that had felt an intense disgust over what Lolth had demanded of her.
And like, the thing is....you could have had her do almost exactly what she did in BG3, and still be a good character, a commentary on the nature of evil. Shar is still evil, after all, she is the lady of loss. Maybe in the end, what Viconia lost in her years of service to Shar was herself. Like yeah, she is now doing things that bear somewhat of a resemblance to what initially disgusted her about Lolth, and that's the point. She's not "Viconia on the redemption path", she's evil Viconia, and after all these years Shar managed to do what Drow society and Lolth could not: Extinguish the one little spark of conscience in her.
Viconia could, with a little more writing and backstory, do exactly what she currently does in BG3 and come across much better. She would be a tragic figure, and maybe some fans of the old games would be sad that she couldn't be more like the Viconia they knew in BG1 and BG2. But she could be a commentary on the nature of evil, and a striking demonstration, especially for fans of the old games, that evil is what Shar *is*. The danger that Shadowheart faced is written in Viconia here: The Drow that once rebelled against the insane demands of her evil god now reduced to this, made less, by the years of her service to Shar.
Maybe I ought to give Larian the benefit of the doubt, maybe that's what they were going for. But it didn't really seem to come across, to me. It just sort of came across as "Wow look! Fun cameo by the EVIL party member from the previous games!"
"Wow look! Fun cameo by the EVIL party member from the previous games!"
This. A few cameos were nicely done, like the referece to the commie nutjub de'Arnisse, but most are too heavily handed and/or simply needless. As to Viconia's arc in Bg1/2 - a switch from Lollth to Shaar is like shifting allegience from Hitler to Stalin - from evil crazy to evil sane.
I should say, fun cameos for some characters I don't consider bad. Some characters are more deeply written than others. I think you could get away with a "Wink wink nudge nudge oh look it's Jan Jansen! Or Mazzy Fentan!" or something like that.
Other characters, however, are clearly more important and need to have more thought given to their inclusion. Viconia, I think, is a nuanced enough character, with a fantastic enough romantic arc, that her appearance should have been more thoughtful. Maybe I'm biased, because she is by far my favorite romance in the originals (And not just because she's an edgy sexy drow lady, though that helps).
But Viconia is such a tragic character, in my view; born into the heart of evil, into a privileged position there, and even then still having an attack of conscience. And her reward for her conscience is to be persecuted, to be hunted down arbitrarily on the surface. And the only character who treats her with any decency is you, and just being shown a bit of kindness is enough to get her on the path to abandoning evil. In a way Viconia can be read as a character with an innately good nature, struggling against the fact that she grew up in, was brainwashed into, one of the most dehumanizing, sadistic, cruel societies imaginable. And this appearance could have shown that tragically, there is no happy end for her. That absent the redemption path in BG2, she wasn't going to find redemption on her own. She couldn't do it all alone, and in service to Shar the sense of injustice she once had would slowly be chipped away, forgotten, erased from her, even as she erased Shadowheart's identity. Her potential fate in the original games could really make you *feel* what a sadistic monster Lolth was. I feel like if she was written better in BG3, it could have made you feel the depths of Shar's evil.
I don't know, again maybe I'm biased. I just feel like she deserved more.
I should say, fun cameos for some characters I don't consider bad. Some characters are more deeply written than others. I think you could get away with a "Wink wink nudge nudge oh look it's Jan Jansen! Or Mazzy Fentan!" or something like that.
Other characters, however, are clearly more important and need to have more thought given to their inclusion. Viconia, I think, is a nuanced enough character, with a fantastic enough romantic arc, that her appearance should have been more thoughtful. Maybe I'm biased, because she is by far my favorite romance in the originals (And not just because she's an edgy sexy drow lady, though that helps).
But Viconia is such a tragic character, in my view; born into the heart of evil, into a privileged position there, and even then still having an attack of conscience. And her reward for her conscience is to be persecuted, to be hunted down arbitrarily on the surface. And the only character who treats her with any decency is you, and just being shown a bit of kindness is enough to get her on the path to abandoning evil. In a way Viconia can be read as a character with an innately good nature, struggling against the fact that she grew up in, was brainwashed into, one of the most dehumanizing, sadistic, cruel societies imaginable. And this appearance could have shown that tragically, there is no happy end for her. That absent the redemption path in BG2, she wasn't going to find redemption on her own. She couldn't do it all alone, and in service to Shar the sense of injustice she once had would slowly be chipped away, forgotten, erased from her, even as she erased Shadowheart's identity. Her potential fate in the original games could really make you *feel* what a sadistic monster Lolth was. I feel like if she was written better in BG3, it could have made you feel the depths of Shar's evil.
I don't know, again maybe I'm biased. I just feel like she deserved more.
That is personal taste. What makes Viconia more important than Mazzy or Jan? I personally have Jan and Mazzy always in my party but do not care for Viconia at all. I would have been more mad, if they brought in Jan or Mazzy and not get them right. I'm not saying they are more important than Viconia or Sarevok, but from a players perspective neither are less important.
Just because Jan and Mazzy don't have the standard edgy backstory doesn't make them less deep. I personally prefer some more sane and healthy conpanioyover an edge fest.
And yeah,I agree with Bubba, Viconias development was from one crazy evil goddess to another. That isn't much of a development imo. ( and without going into real life stuff: evil dictators, that kill thousands for their world view,are rarely sane, just saying). I personally would have been ok, if Viconia wouldn't have made a comeback in BG 3. And Sarevok neither. He basically was purged of Bhaal similar to resisting Durge, so I would want an explanation, how Bhaal was able to control him again.
Last edited by fylimar; 08/04/2406:58 AM.
"We are all stories in the end. Just make it a good one."
I should say, fun cameos for some characters I don't consider bad. Some characters are more deeply written than others. I think you could get away with a "Wink wink nudge nudge oh look it's Jan Jansen! Or Mazzy Fentan!" or something like that.
Other characters, however, are clearly more important and need to have more thought given to their inclusion. Viconia, I think, is a nuanced enough character, with a fantastic enough romantic arc, that her appearance should have been more thoughtful. Maybe I'm biased, because she is by far my favorite romance in the originals (And not just because she's an edgy sexy drow lady, though that helps).
But Viconia is such a tragic character, in my view; born into the heart of evil, into a privileged position there, and even then still having an attack of conscience. And her reward for her conscience is to be persecuted, to be hunted down arbitrarily on the surface. And the only character who treats her with any decency is you, and just being shown a bit of kindness is enough to get her on the path to abandoning evil. In a way Viconia can be read as a character with an innately good nature, struggling against the fact that she grew up in, was brainwashed into, one of the most dehumanizing, sadistic, cruel societies imaginable. And this appearance could have shown that tragically, there is no happy end for her. That absent the redemption path in BG2, she wasn't going to find redemption on her own. She couldn't do it all alone, and in service to Shar the sense of injustice she once had would slowly be chipped away, forgotten, erased from her, even as she erased Shadowheart's identity. Her potential fate in the original games could really make you *feel* what a sadistic monster Lolth was. I feel like if she was written better in BG3, it could have made you feel the depths of Shar's evil.
I don't know, again maybe I'm biased. I just feel like she deserved more.
That is personal taste. What makes Viconia more important than Mazzy or Jan? I personally have Jan and Mazzy always in my party but do not care for Viconia at all. I would have been more mad, if they brought in Jan or Mazzy and not get them right. I'm not saying they are more important than Viconia or Sarevok, but from a players perspective neither are less important.
Just because Jan and Mazzy don't have the standard edgy backstory doesn't make them less deep. I personally prefer some more sane and healthy conpanioyover an edge fest.
And yeah,I agree with Bubba, Viconias development was from one crazy evil goddess to another. That isn't much of a development imo. ( and without going into real life stuff: evil dictators, that kill thousands for their world view,are rarely sane, just saying). I personally would have been ok, if Viconia wouldn't have made a comeback in BG 3. And Sarevok neither. He basically was purged of Bhaal similar to resisting Durge, so I would want an explanation, how Bhaal was able to control him again.
It is not about "more important" or even personal taste, here. It is that you can capture a lot of, say, Jan's character on the first blush. He has depths to him as well, including a surprisingly somber personal quest. But if you included him in BG3 as a funny little gnome guy who tinkers with things and tells long, rambling stories, you'd capture the majority of his character - and it's exactly apparent that this is what he is within, like, two seconds of meeting him in BG2. With Viconia, on the other hand, her character isn't super obvious from first blush. It's more difficult to do a simple cameo with her. You could have Jan appear for a single scene and do a faithful job representing him; Viconia is more difficult, and I think they really badly failed her. Even in the BG2 endings where she remained evil and wasn't romanced, her story was more complex and ambiguous - she kills a Shar cult for "betraying" her (angering even Shar), but also is honored, by the elves no less, for saving one of their cities. Even when she remained evil during the course of the game, her ending seemed to speak to the the complexity of her character.
BG3 changed her back story to make her much more along the lines of "Actually, she secretly was obeying Shar all along!" and her actions bear no small resemblance to what initially disgusted her about Lolth to begin with. And again, like I said, even THAT can be fine, even THAT can be a good story, if it actually feels like there's some DEPTH there. It can be a sad story about how Shar's evil eventually wormed its way into Viconia's heart and corrupted her, robbed her of her complexity and conscience, and eventually debased her until she was doing, with her own hands, what so disgusted her in the first place.
But unless I missed something, it doesn't feel like there's depth to Larian's changes to Viconia. It doesn't feel like they actually considered her character in the previous games at all. It sort of just feels like they wanted some cruel and fairly shallow villain for their new character, Shadowheart, to overcome, and at the same time wanted to do a cameo. So they just sort of mashed what they wanted on to Viconia while, for the most part, ignoring her actual character. It kind of makes me wonder if the person who wrote Viconia in BG3 actually even played BG2 at all, or if they just sort of skimmed through the character roster and thought "Hey, an evil drow who worships Shar? That could kinda fit the villain we want for Shadowheart!"
You take Viconia in your party if you want a full cleric and can't stand Anomen.
Also, from a min-max standpoint her stats are pretty good (Anomen can be good too though).
In the first game Branwen is a pretty good single-class cleric.
Yes, she is. Viconia has spell resistance and very high dexterity, so that probably makes her "better" if you don't mind the evil. At the end of the day the game is easy enough that it doesn't matter though.
Branwen was a very nicely done Valkiria, a bash-their-brains-in type of Cleric. Viconia could tank - with her high DEX (and if she carried her armour and nothing else) - but her high WIZ made her better as healer and skeleton summoner. That's my experience, at least. As I drifted into playing with parties of four and had Viconia as 1st Healer and Jaheira as backup, I never had a slot for Branwen ...
[/quote] It kind of makes me wonder if the person who wrote Viconia in BG3 actually even played BG2 at all, or if they just sort of skimmed through the character roster and thought "Hey, an evil drow who worships Shar? That could kinda fit the villain we want for Shadowheart!"[/quote]
You don't say. ANYTHING tied to the previous games, in terms of world building or NPCs is a disappointment. Wonder why (hint: Salad dressing).
If we did a poll on who has played and finished Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, bet you 7 out of 10 BG3 gamers haven't even touched these games, and the remaining probably played for a couple hours. I'd argue that probably 1 out of 10 BG3 gamer actually played through the originals, and even less with all the amazing mods out there that makes the game 5x more interesting. I clocked in over 400 hours for BG2 will all story/quests/expended npc story mods.
Im not seing lots of 40+ year olds in Larian's staff that worked on BG3's story and character dev....I highly doubt most played through the games either. And nowadays with gamers having the attention span of an EDGY DUCK, no way they can enjoy these amazing games before starting to complain about "accessibility" and "quality of life" this and that.
I can see it....the first team meeting at Larian HQ , pre-EA, Swen in armor asking everyone "So, who has played the previous Baldur's gate games!?"....and the awkward silence. lol. "WEll!!! Get to iT!!".
Larian probably had someone come up with a LIST of boxes to check to somehow tie to the previous games. I highly doubt it took much thought.
Who cares anyways. The 3 in Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't mean anything in this day and age. True for so many older IPs. I wish studios made new original IPs instead of cashing in past successes. Really happy Larian is moving on to an original project. 100% support.
Last edited by Count Turnipsome; 10/04/2411:27 AM.
It just reminded me of the bowl of goat's milk that old Winthrop used to put outside his door every evening for the dust demons. He said the dust demons could never resist goat's milk, and that they would always drink themselves into a stupor and then be too tired to enter his room..
