Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion Let's Talk About (the) Sex

Sex sells of course, and sadly shocks some people more than violence, and "to shock" was a thing of the trailer. Other than that, what is the lore purpose of the sex scenes in the trailer?

Is it "an orgy", taking place on occasion of the burning ritual, a spontaneous (?) part of the fair, like artistic shows, eating, drinking and vomiting, as I heard in some comments? If so, Larian showed us a badly composed scene without much sense. The sex takes place in two small areas on both far sides of the three big wicker structures (why there?), there are few people involved compared to the size of the crowd, and all sex involving two persons seemingly is inter-racial. That's not at all a probable scenario of spontaneous acts of having pleasure during a feast.

Or is it an organized part of the burning ritual? Why does the beautiful Human woman who is busy with the Lizardman wear some flower necklaces? It's hiding her breasts (you don't see any primary or secundary sexual area of persons in the trailer, cleverly made by Larian) but is she especially adorned? For what reason? If it's a burning of a sourcerer, what do the sexual acts, mostly or all of mixed races, mean? Has it a magical purpose? Is it pure coincidence or a sign to the gods they maybe want to come back? Who are the people involved and what are they thinking?

Its probably nothing more than a scene setter with a nod to the reported activities (Pagan/or whatever) that may or not have taken place in history. I don't think anyone expects us to write a thesis on it.

I think its purpose was just to add to the mass hysteria and lack of morals, in a common sense. Sin, basically. Maybe to ponder the idea that godless communities can come extremely immoral or smth.

The answer is simple, Larian owes their big success with BG3 entirely to bear sex, not story, world building (although the name Baldurs Gate helped) or characters. You can see this for example in the first threads that sprung up on this board after the announcement were about asking for more sex.

So to repeat the BG3 success as Larian stated they want to they have to add more sex and they added those scenes to the trailer to ensure their fans that they will porn it up more.

Lore wise? Probably nothing.

It's more of an insight into the nature of how people feel about the circumstances being depicted.

The brutal act of ritually burning someone alive isn't a mere execution. It is something that people quite literally revel in.

All of the trailer is showing the light in which this act is seen. From the pyre in the shape of a person, to the festivities that are taking place with alcohol, music and food. This isn't an act of corporal punishment, but something that is seen as celebratory. Not just from religious fanatics, but the common folk too.

The sex itself, is merely adding to how light hearted the entire affair is, that people get so caught up in festivities that public sex is not noteworthy. A ritual execution is as light hearted as a music festival.

Now, the lore implications of the entirety of the festivities are:

- This is not an isolated or special case.

It isn't the first execution of its kind. People know and expect them and will prepare around them.

- These executions are seen as a good thing.

It is not just some holy order persuing justice, but some sort of task that even commoners believe in. With it not being hidden away from the common folk either, they're straight up aware of it and are delighted by it.

- Whomever the order is that is enacting these executions, appears to have control over the region.

There doesn't appear to be any dissent showing signs that their authority is being challenged. They are seemingly freely able to capture and execute individuals, meaning they are in power and are backed by the public opinion.

That was actually true exactly in the 1960s, when it was "cool", and never ever since.

Ever since advertisement with sexual undertones yields by majority negative reactions.

Statistically untrue.

Which is why sexual advertisement is still extremely popular.

Heck, it's a MAJOR part of the massively popular "Gacha" games, whereby they are all featuring sexualized characters that people pay TONS of money for.

Not to mention stuff like "Booth Babes" at conventions and from sponsors at events.

The only pushback to it is a vocal MINORITY. Otherwise, it is hugely popular and always has been.

This must be a delusional or purposely misleading take (I think the latter given the general attitude of your average post), EA numbers speak for themselves, more than 2.5m copies sold, there were black screens for sex scenes in EA. If story and world building were objectively worthless then no amount of marketing wizardry would save the game from fail. Success factors in a lot of variables and blatantly stating that it stems from a single marketing decision or even one aspect of the game is wrong. I would appreciate if you'd save your bile for topics that are worth of it. Also the majority of threads are not sex related.

Instead of your personal attacks you can look back at the whole development and marketing process objectivly.

The EA attracted a lot of rpg players because of the name BG. But the outsized success of it only came when it spread beyond the usual RP gamers. And how did it do that? With the bear sex scene which was a big headline in all media and attracted the attention of a lot of additional customers. And Larian was aware of that. You can see it all over the game that sex was an important part of the game design. All companions are attractive and playersexual, they made a lot of changes to appease the thirsting masses like making Halsin into a sex obsessed companion and changing around kisses in the limited post game support they were willing to give in order to appease the thirsting fanfiction part of the community.
And if you are honest, BG3 does not offer a lot besides that. The plot is full of holes, thanks to the last minute rewrites, the companions are flat because of the sex focus and making them all waifu, its full of very annoying mechanics like trading and the toilet chain and it was verry buggy.

What made everyone try out the game anyway was the bear sex scene and character nudity. Everyone knows that, including Larian which is why they added sex to the reveal trailer as Larian is fully aware that people expect a lot of nudity and sex from their next game (again, see what the very first threads that were created here were) and that they will be very disappointed if Divinity does not at least match and better exceed the sex and nudity in BG3. This is what became Larians trademark.

The question remains wether it is a spontaneous act or incorporated into the ritual. Eating and drinking on one hand and having publicly sex on the other hand is quite a difference. I also doubt that there would be only mixed racial pairs if there wasn't a planning involved. Could admittedly be just a Larian exaggeration without more thoughts behind it.

To the moral side, a lot depends on the backstory of the burning ritual. I'm not sure who is good and evil, if there is any. Is the burned man a mere victim or a danger? In a fantasy world where gods and supernatural evil forces aren't just a product of human imatination but exist "in real", our standards may be in question. Imagine if the widespread fear of witchcraft in Europe in the late 16th and first half of 17th century AD had had a real base and witches of both sex would really have killed stock and sometimes humans with magic, as the common people thought? The burning of such a person wouldn't have been the murder it was, but self-defense of the society.

What were those personal attacks again? Are they in this room right now with us? Seems like you yourself try to make it personal in order to stray from giving cohesive arguments.

So, basically your point should have been made differently in order to be undisputable. The game's sales greatly benefited from its sexual themes yes, which have been in RPGs in the same explicit manner since DAO which was like almost 20 years ago? Sex is a big part of roleplay same as violence, commaradery, friendship and heroism since those are hard to get themes in a daily life. All of those themes are well established in BG3 and they all make up what you mentioned 'story, worldbuilding and characters'. Themes like 'overcoming an embedded insecurity', 'going against the grain', 'choosing the lesser of two evils', 'living up to the ideal', 'denying reality', 'finding purpose', 'blind faith', 'racial conflict', 'freedom of speech', 'conformity', 'what makes us human', 'collective vs individual' etc etc are present in characters and the world (hope you don't need me to pinpoint what characters / world events correlate with those timeless themes, or else I would think you haven't even finished the game). The general consensus is that this is a great role playing game on all fronts (yet flawed on some, I don't like toilet chain as well) and its success cannot be objectively attributed to a single marketing event.

Sorry for derailing the thread a tad bit, I think the sex in a ritualistic sense can also theoretically call for soil fertility aka bountiful crops (the whole event looks as a fair kind of). Apart from sex we can also see some people wearing animalistic masks whipping themselves, those could call for the blessings to the hunters maybe. Sacrifice in religion is mythology often ties into those themes of pleasing the gods to then get something in return.

On the other hand the premise for this trailer was that 'the gods are silent', therefore I lean into my previous theory of this being a rock bottom for godless/purposeless and immoral society. They had a literal kid there cheering for the violent execution and exposed to the sight of sexual acts...

It seems more spontaneous than ritualistic.

Since it seems distinctly separated from the actual ritual area, where the effigies are located. The people having sex are also not interacted or even acknowledged by the order that is performing the ritual.


Someone hasn't been to a music festival

Especially ones from the 60's...


I wouldn't put much stock in this. It's a short snippet of a trailer and the sex is a minor part of it which is only on screen for a few frames (Further highlighting its independence from the ritual which makes up the majority of the screen time)

This seems more like aiming for shock factor (Much as to why sex is included in the first place) whereby having inter-species sex has been proven to provide more engagement as the bear-sex marketing showed for BG3.


That would be the major question and given Divinity's history, would depend very much on which side you're on.

As is the case with the Original Sin games. The first game you play as people hunting down Sourcerers because they're evil. The second game you play AS Sourcerers and figure out that they're not inherently evil (But do provide inherent risk to the world)

To be honest, I don't mind gore but I find the burning scenes borderline unacceptable and don't like watching, so I concentrate to overanalyzise the rest of the trailer. And I find the sexual scenes the most interesting.


I think they want the gods back because the gods are silent and without them bad things are happening (Rivellon bleeds) and (even more) evil things start to happen. That the body is bad and sex is a sin and the contrary to religious practice is also mostly connected to the absolutistic monotheistic religions and in this sense a late view. The use of sexual rituals was part of some older religions (for example temple prostitution), so that sex is immoral to the Rivellon people is not a sure thing. They all surely do not really know what's happening and with what forces they are playing, but they try what they can, deluded by their religion/ideology.



Hehe, I never attended such a big music festival, it's a funny comparison. I was on several Techno club events in the 90's however, luckily smartphones with cameras were not a thing in these nice times.

I would be happier if the sex was a spontaneous act of people wanting fun, but I'm actually quite sure that it is part of the ritual. When you look at the big overview of the "fair" area, before the burning starts, you see that the sexual actions take place at both sides of the three big statues, divided from the crowd by the fence, as such similar to the persons who are whipping themselves. So they take place in the inner ritual side, framing it in. The whipping and the sex seem to be arranged by the leaders of the ritual, at least partly. It may be also deliberate that Larian shows the (rather short) first sex scene during the excessive violent burning sequence of the poor victim (if it's not simply just as cheap shock feature).

Without further information we will not know. Anyway, I'm curious wether the trailer has some meaning for the later gameplay. I will surely try to save all the people if possible. And then make a date with the woman who is busy with the lizard.