Sad to see it came to people hoping for mods to fix Larian's mess, instead of Larian themselves - a company that prides itself on story details and reactivity. Not sure which desperate hope is worse, at this point Raphael will be paying a visit to us all 
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/K6SpymM.jpg)
But yeah... the reason why everything feels the way you mentioned is because they're not interested in telling an evil story in the first place, which is why they treat
any failure and evil choice as just a minor deviation of the good path, to entertain as mere eye-candy and nothing more. When in actuality evil
choices should lead to opposite
fully-developed story branches that offer fully unique story content, through a different perspective and path.
Naturally they don't offer any of that, which is why even these merely extended evil endings also follow their same atrocious attitude towards evil as they're
just trying to visually impress while providing no content as usual. 0% story substance, 100% cool visuals. And while the general public is easily impressed,
the genuine roleplayers invested in the evil story with Minthara/Astarion are watching in utter disgust as the game is defecating upon their 100 hour of playtime by disregarding the established lore, character motives, player agency and seeing their love interest discarded like trash.
This same atrocious attitude towards evil
is also why Minthara got designed in the first place and as is evident
ended up ultimately murdering the character.
They didn't create her because they truly wanted to tell an intricate story of a companion as an Absolute's victim and in doing so provide an insightful experience and unique journey for the player to explore, but to merely create
a compensation for deviation, flaunting her as some sort of secret bonus companion to impress the general public who couldn't care less. So naturally they abandoned the character created for all the wrong reasons.
"Hideous... all of it!" -
Truly to the heart of the matter. Minthara's story could overwhelm Viconia's story from BG2 precisely because of her history as a victim of the Absolute, which gives opportunities for drama even more than just the story of a drow escaping to the surface. Nere could also be a companion with an interesting story (his manic narcissism looks funny at first glance, but kind of hints at the serious psychological trauma that could be behind it). Honestly, if Halsin, Jaheira and Minsc are on one scale, the other should have had Minthara, Nere and Viconia at least a little bit like herself. But okay, god with them, with Nere and Viconia, one Minthara if normally finalized, but no... The game resembles (and in many ways is) a “dating simulator”, but, unfortunately, designed to the general public so that the general public “tried everything and everyone”.
Larian's aversion to evil became so extreme with BG3 they also rewrote their entire Early Access cast from neutral evil to neutral/good and in doing so murdered the essences of those characters. Even lazily threw Minthara into the good path mix eventually because they still can't bother themselves to do her justice. This exact atrocious attitude of theirs is also why any time the player tries to deviate from the intended story path they're met with 10 minutes of exposition LECTURING the deviating player.
Yes, when I decided that I'd had enough of “good-heartedness” and in the next playthrough I'd be happy to show my character evil enough so that no one would have any desire to “teach”, then... That's the freaking exposition, yeah... Kar'niss I wanted to keep alive and in the first playthrough, I “sat on two chairs” by going with him and making the poor guy wait for hours, exploring almost the entire map, including the tavern “The Last Light”. But he's doomed anyway, because he's evil.
Not to mention they constantly keep branding her in all their interviews as EVIL, when ironically enough she does not commit a single evil deed in the entire game! She's so unfinished that there's not a single moment in the entire game where Minthara even gets a chance to do something evil. She's all bark and no bite, who are they trying to convince here?
Yeah, never. Viconia in BG2 literally killed another companion, her antagonist, under my nose, no matter how I tried to “ separate them in different corners ', I just found a corpse, and drow with a cute look and nothing to do with it, although everything is clear to everyone ... And no one stigmatized, companions in BG2 could kill each other, betray you, ambush you, and no ‘morality’, and certainly no infringement in the content. Not only does Minthara do nothing wrong, I can't even call her “evil” by her lines (given drow culture and drow behavior in general). She is rather a person who is intelligent, rational, at first distrustful (of course), who has “seen life”, if I may say so. A person who has been through hard times, gained relevant life experience and attitude in the world, but not “evil, evil”. The “good” Wyll and Gale have some pretty nasty lines at times and that's okay, it's fine, they're allowed.
Blows my mind that they had actual great written evil companions... like the amazing Sebille. A sweet elf abducted and dominated, turned into a slave to be used as a weapon by her Master, broke free seeking revenge upon all those who wronged her. Starts off extremely rude and distant with so many barriers up, even threatens to kill the player (just like Astarion) and ends up murdering several people without the player's say so. She's brutal. But then the barriers slowly start to come down and the roaring tigress eventually becomes a purring loving kitten by the end of the game. Such a beautifully written character with such a sweet ending. Along with the Red Prince, she is the best damn character they ever wrote.
I can't fathom they fell so embarrassingly low. From Sebille and Red Prince to... this... broken, unfinished, uncared-for companions like Minthara, Halsin and Wyll.
Yes, I remember Sebille, a wonderful character. It's a special pleasure to achieve friendship with a character with a complex character and a hard fate. And I understand the frustration of those who played EA (I was given an EA build, I was able to see how promising the game looked), afterwards they went completely in the wrong direction, in my opinion.
