Please! I wish! I doubt they’ll do anything elaborate at this stage, but this is what it should have been originally or with patch 7 and the evil endings. His arc ended up being very anticlimactic as one of the game’s main antagonists, which is disappointing given that he has so much potential. While Ketheric and Orin had their roles, Gortash was the mastermind of the plot along with DU. I don’t think the other two would have initiated such a grand, diabolical scheme.
Indeed, Gortash was the mastermind behind the plot, along with the DU! Ketheric didn't care about power per se, didn't even care about the outcome of the whole plan. He was paying his debt to Myrkul, the only god who heard him and brought his daughter back to life (even though the daughter had disowned her father). He was a willing instrument of Myrkul, and participated in the plan as one of the three chosen, but none of this was necessary for himself. Orin is too chaotic, she loves to play, and sees killing as an art form, but she would lack the restraint and logic to create such a massive and elaborate plan. In my opinion, Orin is more of a tactician, but not a strategist (she thinks through one-off clever moves, but doesn't calculate too far ahead). Gortash - just a great strategist. He had thought out all the details of the overall plan, but he and Orin had different end goals. Ketheric was a kind of “neutral side” between the two, and once Ketheric was gone, and his stone could change the balance of power, there was a rift between Gortash and Orin. I think there would have been a conflict between Gortash and Orin even in the event of their overall victory, if one imagines how the story would have played out without the presence of our little company in it.
Very beautiful character analysis! I agree. In order to escape the horrors Gortash was subjected to, a “hero” likely would have had to take actions contrary to their alignment to survive. The “turn the other cheek” types would up dead or worse, given that their captors do not hold themselves to the same moral code. Additionally, a character with a weaker constitution than Gortash may have wallowed in their own despair or resigned themselves to their fate.
I was really only viewing devils based on the phrasing used on page 122 of the 5e manual in order to illustrate just how unlikely it would have been for Gortash to come out of The House of Hope possessing a good alignment. But you brought up another really excellent point— devils are constantly scheming and plotting to advance themselves further at the expense of others as they live in a caste system. Raphael demonstrates this core behavior through his own machinations to
obtain the Crown of Karsus to rule over the Nine Hells.
. I wish I could say this in a way that wasn’t so cliche, but the apple doesn’t really fall far from the tree. Gortash was already described as brilliant at a young age. His hatefulness came from none other than his own parents— the corpses of the Flymms do not hide the fact that they have always despised him, thinking of him as wicked, troublesome, and a burden. I suspect they largely blamed him for their marital problems and probably blamed him for their financial woes as well. They really were rotten people— as you said, no better than devils— and even if the player kills them, they seem to feel no remorse or take any responsibility for their actions. So this hatefulness was already planted within him before he was sold off into slavery and his main childhood role model is a being whose race follows a meritocratic structure. As an aside, I wish we would have gotten more dialogue referencing Gortash’s relationship with Raphael.
Yes, alignment is not a constant for humans, alignment varies with life experience. Ketheric used to have a neutral-good alignment. A good character quickly loses his naivety and idealism and hardens when faced with serious disasters. But in Gortash's shoes there is no possibility of even starting life with any naive idealism, his hatred, as you well said, came from his own parents. There was not an ounce of goodness in his life from the beginning, or what people usually call happiness. And as you wrote in a previous post, an romance with DU would have been the first time in his entire life that someone would have cared about him as a human being, and the first time he could have felt something other than the cold satisfaction of fulfilling an ambition, something warm and real. Happiness.
Yes, you're right about the DnD rules, devils are lawful-evil. And Gortash has lawful-evil alignment, too. And the logical choice for him was Bane, the lawful-evil god of tyranny. Enver is a genius who developed and molded exclusively in a meritocratic structure. The criminal structures of Baldur - where his youth was spent and where he began his rise - also have their castes and their rules. They are more flexible and chaotic than the devil's rules, but in any case, these circles are clearly not the kind of society where one can see the “good” and find a single reason to do it.
Yes, the Flymms just continue to hate their son even more, and see death more as a release from suffering because of the punishment he inflicted on them. And are angry at you for leaving things the way they are.
Considering the medieval fantasy setting, you’re right that trauma would be defined differently than it would in a modern sense. I just personally head canon him as having this slight vulnerability— that he never wants to find himself at the bottom of someone’s boot ever again.
Yes, anyone who has ever been at the bottom of someone's boot will never believe in the illusion of a “safe world”. You need guarantees, you need power, you need protection. And the more power, the more control, the fewer those who can pose a threat. The vulnerability here lies in not knowing when one can stop, when enough is enough. Becoming Duke of Baldur, one would think, would be enough. And I wonder if Gortash's beloved could have helped him find that balance, and realize when enough power is enough? Would the DU have been able to get him to agree to destroy the Brain, convince the townspeople that he was the savior of the city and they would have stayed to rule together, become married, etc.? But that's just musings on the subject, since the novel wasn't revealed in the game, how he would have felt about the DU and their words in this case is unclear, and it's hard to make any logical assumptions about it.
But realistically, I think describing Gortash as a success story of someone who literally clawed their way to the top is more true to his character and properly showcases qualities that are commonly perceived as attractive: intelligence, ambition, determination, and resilience. Definitely one of the reasons why people, myself included, admire his character and would like to see him as a LI. He isn’t a boring, one-dimensional, mustache twirling villain— there was a lot of thought and effort put into his creation.
Intelligence, ambition, determination and resilience are certainly attractive qualities. These are the qualities of a person who creates and/or destroys, makes history, changes the world around him. How he changes the world, in which direction, depends on many other factors. Gortash is certainly a beautifully written character who is very important in the story.
His very connection with the DU is central to the plot and their relationship dynamic would make a compelling romance. “Baby gurl” isn’t too busy for smooches. I get what they meant that he’s too focused on his own ambitions for a serious relationship, but I could make a counter argument using one of my favorite game romances of all time: Solas from DAI. If an actual god was able to be distracted temporarily from his goals through a dalliance with the Inquisitor, I don’t see why something similar couldn’t be written into Gortash’s story. I thought I recall reading somewhere that Solas wasn’t even originally written as a LI but was added later. I might also be imagining things.
Sorry for the overly verbose response! I just love Gortash and I enjoy discussing the complexities of his character!
In one of the vaults in Baldur's bank, you can find the diary of a noble lady who was in a relationship with young Enver and gave him the family ring. Yes, sure, it was seduction for his own purposes, but it at least proves that Gortash is not the kind of man who is completely uninterested in women. And the main thing is that he and DU had a common past, a common goal in the past. I think that for a man like Gortash, the intelligence of the beloved, her ability to understand him, his thinking and his goals would be very important. The beloved should be a business partner as well, complementing him. In the case of that lady, it is unlikely that they had a connection on an intellectual level, but in the case of DU, it could have been just like that. Solas is a very good example. It's hard for me to think of anyone else similar from games, but the images of kings and emperors from history come to mind - few of them were good people in the modern sense of the word (back then, the understanding of morality was very different from today), but many of them had lovers, favorites, wives they loved, and it didn't interfere with their ambitions. Napoleon Bonaparte had enormous ambition and intelligence and determination, sleeping five hours a day to get more done. But this did not prevent him from loving Josephine, if you read their love correspondence, you can't help but be amazed at how reverently and tenderly this couple treated each other. If this was the case in reality, why shouldn't the game reflect it?
