Since I have a good and detailed understanding specifically of my own romance in the game, I can give examples from it as an answer to the question:
Originally Posted by ArneBab
How do you take from this a moral lesson against monogamous relationships?
Which was addressed to me. Good thing ArneBab had a different experience, I only tried to explain what "moral lessons" are taught to players in another romance, and why I drew such conclusions about this game. I can judge other players' romances from some videos and posts by the players themselves, but that judgment will not be as complete and objective as the judgment of those players who went through the game with those romances. It's true that when talking about other romances, one immediately thinks of the posts full of anger and pain by Shadowheart fans on the subject of the Shadowheart/Halsin relationship. This anger is completely justified; these players too took their favorite character seriously and reverently in a simulation game: "possibilities of up and right, down and left, animals, boys, girls, low and high". The Shadowheart/Halsin example is an example of obsessive polygamy that doesn't take into account the feelings of the real people playing the game. Of course, it's rather ridiculous with this approach to expect such psychological realism from a game as a response to loyalty from a romantic companion. This would no longer be more of a complaint about BG3, but a speculation about what is worth considering in a game with a variety of romances if the game wants to be realistic and show different sides of human characters through their reactions to player interaction. In BG3, it is officially considered that the player in Act 1 and the beginning of Act 2 "is not in a relationship, but just having fun with no strings attached", and the uninformed player, thinking they already have a romance, doesn't understand why the game doesn't take this into account, why these relationships look like the characters are hiding them, inventing headcanons to explain to themselves the reason for this need to hide relationships. It's pretty funny.
Originally Posted by Mirmi
Is it worth mentioning, everyone primarily associates the BG3 with the bear and the squid? Or bear and...oh, no, no name. "Ha ha, yeah this is the same game where..." - Further, the continuation everyone will insert for themselves.
I hate the "bear scene" with pure hatred. I don't want to mention the name myself when talking about it. If I had seen such an "advertisement" before buying the game, I wouldn't have bought it. I found out about this scene by accident at the moment when I was still in great delight with the game, somewhere, I think, in Act 1. The emotion of this scene cannot be described in a public conversation, as the words that are allowed to be used would not be able to fully express it. There are many deep and subtle moments in the game, including psychological moments expressed through facial expressions, glances, shades of voice, and the versatility of characters' personalities. You can see a "fake manipulative situation", you can pick up on other things, you can see willingness and consent, you can understand what's behind it, great acting and the complexity of the character allows for both. And next to that is "bear sex." And this sort of thing happens periodically throughout the play, subtlety interspersed with vulgarity.
Originally Posted by Mirmi
And this also applies not only to the character Tav and his interactions with companions, but also to simple npcs who, claim their connections, even if the player did not ask about it.
That's a great point! Indeed, NPCs regularly talk about their connections just out of the blue, in reality people don't do that, it's really a bit weird.
