Pretty much yup.
Constant prattling about her being irredeemably evil. Meanwhile... their "irredeemably evil" Drow.For someone so "irredeemably evil" she sure is terribly compassionate, caring, loving, understanding, comforting, uplifting, loyal, selfless, devoted. Wait a minute... I thought they said she's evil. It just turns the soul upside down. And what an acting job... You can feel the tears and grief and deep feelings in the voice... It's a rare scene - you have to play as Karlach Origin for it, have a romance with Minthara and yet also choose death. It's a shame that very few players will see it. I too was surprised by some of Larian's interviews and was surprised by some incredibly superficial attitudes towards the characters. At the same time in the game itself there are such strong moments, really deep and heartbreaking moments, excellent play of actors, conveying with their voices and facial expressions real emotions, which are impossible not to feel. And on the other hand - in the same game primitive moralizing, a lot of incomprehensible sex content - I mean not romance with LI, which, on the contrary, is in short supply, the same Mintkhara has a beautiful romance, but few replicas and scenes, but all sorts of content “for amateurs” like illithid, bear, “ threesomes” and “love triangles” in Act 1 (2 hours of additional content on all these triangles, cheating and reactions to them). What for? For “laughs?” And to finish the story properly, to refine the characters, after all, to create a true romance, not a crazy psychopath from DU who accepted Bhaal? And the attitude towards their own “officially recognized as evil out of court” characters as well...
Тhe existing story (and Minthara) would've been drastically so much better treated if Larian didn't become so biased trying to lecture and moralize players, but just told a realistically intricate fantasy story for the player to roleplay in (which Early Access was all about until they Disney-fied the story with rewrites). Because if we put aside for a moment their terribly obsessive aversion towards evil (and ignore character assassinations of Viconia and Sarevok); them two for example would've been Jaheira and Minsc counterparts for an evil path. Imagine the amount of awesome intricate insight and wisdom these two could have imparted on us if they were properly treated and written without bias.
This is how an actual unbiased BG3 story would look like;- Join the Grove - keep Halsin, Wyll and Karlach, but Moonrise Towers becomes inaccessible due to Marcus acting as Ketheric's spy.
- Raid the Grove - gain Minthara, Nere and Marcus, but Last Light Inn becomes inaccessible due to Cerys acting as Zevlor's scout.
- Free Dame Aylin to fight against the Cult - gain Jaheira and Minsc as companions, but Wyrm's Rock's Fortress becomes inaccessible due to Gortash's scrying eyes in Moonrise.
- Imprison Dame Aylin to infiltrate the Cult - gain Viconia DeVir and Sarevok Anchev as companions, along with access to Wyrm's Rock Fortress due to Marcus being a Flaming Fist.
- Reject Gortash's alliance - keep Karlach as a companion.
- Accept Gortash's alliance - gain Gortash as an ally with a unique ending (and as an ultimate final boss-fight as an Avatar of Bane if he's betrayed after dominating the Absolute - like Lohse's Adramahlihk in DOS II).
- Destroy the Absolute - gain the full epilogue as it currently is with all its intricacies.
- Dominate the Absolute - Either become the Absolute by initiating the Grand Design. Or become Bane's Chosen by conquering the world. Or become Bhaal's Chosen by slaughtering the world. Or become Myrkul's Chosen by enveloping the world in chaos. Or embrace the ultimate divine power for yourself to reshape the world in an Origin ending in which you choose to become benevolent or evil divinity.
*Becoming the Chosen of Lord Bane*
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/jLzUVCl.jpg)
I want to play this game. Yes, indeed, the perfect solution to create in the player the desire to replay the game in different ways (at least twice), to get as a result a complete picture of the world, history and characters. This is what it is - to interest the player, when, having started playing “good”, you are interested, you want to go to the end, but there is already curiosity and desire to try the “evil” way next time, because Moonrise Towers are not available, and you want to know what is there. And further variation only fuels the interest. In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous the authors managed to realize something similar with their 6 different paths.
Do also note the very first response as well, the reason why our main character seeks power in the first place.
Yes, “intelligent evil.” A character with motivation, logic, and intelligence. Just the kind of “evil” or “gray” roleplay variant I'd like to see. Not squirrel crushing. The EA build I'm playing right now with great interest, which is overshadowed by the realization that this game won't get a sequel. And how many scenes that somehow never made it into the main game...
That's unfortunately what Larian forgot, they forgot to realistically write a roleplaying story and instead wrote a 100h idealistic lecture about moral decisions... power is evil, ambition is evil, self-preservation is evil, divinity is evil, murder is evil (unless it's Viconia/gobo-kids), vengeance is evil (unless you're Aylin/Karlach), mindflayers have no souls (unless you do the right thing)... like a parent lecturing a child about evil through some children's book in which the hero defeats the villain, saves the princess and they live happily ever after.
+100. Even feel sorry for this imaginary child and wish they could learn something else on their own. The same self-preservation, for starters. It's interesting that blindly following the “good” in BG3 leads to defeat (well, or what looks or feels like defeat). In doing so, we get lectures that try to “enforce” that this is the way to go. Pretty ironic.
