Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General [Spoilers]BG3 companions: how will they evolve?

BG3 EA provides players with 5 potential companions some of which you can kill/dump right from the start but who are supposed to help you accomplish your goals.

Shadowheart: An "evil cleric" of Shar on some sort a mission for her cult.
Lae'zel: An evil Githyanki fighter with overinflated self esteem.
Gale: An apparently good wizard hiding a dangerous secret.
Astarion: An evil high elf vampire spawn who found out the tadpole implanted into his brain make him immune to sunlight and wants to find a way to exploit its power without turning into a mind flayer in order to escape his regnant's control.
Wyll: An apparently good warlock with a cambion patron who used to be a weakling before his fiendish pact turned him into a local hero, searching on a loophole to get rid of the entity who gave him his powers.

I feel it's pretty clear where each of these characters start on the moral axis. Some are good and some are evil BUT the game leaves room for them to evolve past their initial allignment (or not, depending on your choices). So my question how do you think each of these characters can evolve during play?

For example, with Shadowheart I can see her being convinced to abandon Shar and turn to Selune (for reasons explained HERE). What about the rest? Can Astarion become good/stop beign a vampire or will he end up usurping his master? What about Wyll and Mizora? And is Gale as good and affable as he seems to be or is that just an elaborate facade? And what about Lae'zel who thus far has given like zero signs of wanting to become nothing more than another loyal Githyanki reaver?

Well, personally, I saw in Wyll a certain deconstruction of the image of a "good warlock who made a pact to protect the innocent". So, in interactions with him after your party is given additional power, he accepts it without question, hinting that he's not entirely altruistic, he can also be petty and downright sadistic when it comes to exacting his revenge on the goblin who cost him his eye, lashing out at the player if they try and talk him out of it. It is possible that he can be taken to evil, like Keldorn in the BG 2.

Reading Lae'zel's thoughts suggests that, despite her outward severity and cruelty, she is scared and uncertain. She is afraid to let her Queen down.
It seems to me that at some point the player will have the opportunity to reveal the secret of Vlaakith by changing Lae'zel's opinion of the githyanki and their goals.
For some reason I think she might even join Sha'sal Khou, become more tolerant or something.

I feel like there is a general theme of Persona (not the game, the concept) with our companions. They all seem to have a mask of sorts, some way they wish the world would see them. But even in the ea there are a lot of cracks in these masks.

Wyll is the most obvious one of them - he wants you to think he is some badass level 30 hero who killed many dragons, but all I see is "super fake". What kind of a lame ass character consider his biggest nemesis to be a lame goblin? I see in his future some sort of realisation of what being a true hero means, and perhaps then he will be more tolerable.

Shadowheart - Shadowheart's "look at me! I'm evil and sneaky" attitude is not very convincing after several hours in the game. I get a sense of some kind hearted character who never had the chance to practice kindness. I don't know if there is brainwashing involved, but I strongly feel a redemption arc, if such a redemption is necessary. we only hear shadowheart is evil, but we have no knowledge of what evil deeds she commited other than worshipping Shar. This last bit makes me think that perhaps Shadowheart actually was into Shar he whole life, but wasn't doing any evil missions, at least not until very recently.

Laezel - another character I'm surprised to hear people say that should be level 10. If from what we know of Laezel, not only she is so green (no pun intended) that she never left her crath before, but we also know she is full of self doubt (which is kinda strange for a githienky)

Astarion and Gale are more complete identity wise. I would say Astarion is finally discovering who he really is but he does it rather quickly, and once he does he kinda goes into a spiral of cheotic evil craziness. It's hard to predict where his character will go to, but his story probably leads to Cazador.

Gale is the least interesting to me, and I feel his character don't have where to go

Really nice analysis both of you.

On Gale's persona I suspect there is a mask behind the mask and his good guy persona is the performance of a lifetime. He presents as carefully guarded but lets his guard down really quickly but I'm guessing the guarded facade was always a slight of hand designed to distract from his "we're intimates now" facade. I'm guessing he's secretly a Sharran agent -- would explain his interest in Shadowheart and the fact that his quest is really consistent with someone who had found the shadow weave.

I think Laezel's crisis is going to be about collective vs individual identity. At this point her entire personality is derived from her creche. If we find the creche and it turns out that there is no purification ritual, no extraction device she will need to decide if she will stay loyal to a creche and a culture that fed her lies.

I'm most excited to see how Lae'Zel and Wyll develop during the game. Especially Lae'Zel, I can'´t wait to play the game as a gith with her in my party, all of the peering into her mind I've done so far has made me super curious about where her story goes.
Wyll basically being a deconstruction of your typical D&D hero is pretty interesting too. I love his voice actors performance and his animations. He's probably the one party member that feels the most like an actual person to me right now.

While I like the other companions as well, especially Astarion, their backstories are a little weak to me so far. With Astarion I guess most of his deal will be explored once you get to Baldurs Gate, so hopefully that's interesting.

Gale gives me the impression of being something of a "snake oil salesman", he tries to ingratiate himself before making his requests ("How was my deer stew? Good wasn't it? Happy you liked it... by the way do you happen to have a spare artefact I can consume? Thank you!"). He also mentions he had "dealings" with the Netherese in the past. Considering how the magic keeping the tadpole from turning you into an Illithid is Netherese shadow magic that gives me some bad vibes about Gale although it might just mean he fought the Netherese Shadovars (ancient Netherese wizard kings who escaped the cataclysm that destroyed their civilization by teleporting to Shar's real and using the shadow weave to cast their magic) in the past.

Lae'zel seems like someone who's "book smart" but doesn't really know much about the world besides what she was taught. Considering how Githyanki lie a lot to make themselves look like the best race of the multiverse I suspect she's in for a brutal awakening.

Wyll I feel will be a classical case of faustian bargain. He lies about his connection to Mizora (the glass eye). He was a nobody and was given power in exchange for his own soul. That kind of stuff rarely ends well.

Great point about Gale. I suspected there might be something like that after the talk with Raphael. This one was very inconsistent with everything else he did but I'm still not sure what to make of it.

About Wyll - I like the idea of Wyll's character much more than Wyll himself in practice. Right now he just annoys the crap out of me, but I also feel the "fake" in all of his lines.

Yes, Wyll feels like someone who just tried too hard, couldn't do it and resorted to a shortcut (devil pact) to get the glory he wanted. There's actually a dialogue that highlights this at Waukeen Rest.

Honestly, for someone who was a slave that was mindcontrolled, raped, tortured and humiliated for two centuries Astarion is a bit way too stable.

Lae'zel, at least, seems like she's being set up for some kind of existential crisis - so far she doesn't have a quest hook built into her beyond the shared problem with the parasite. I'm very curious about what'll happen when we finally locate that creche.