Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Explicit decapitations and Disney squirrels

I have to disagree on the Irenicus part. I do think his character is quite stereotypical , perhaps even cliché in the fantasy genre (just like the 'simple boy discovers he is special and on a world saving mission' is another often used cliché in fantasy) but that doesn't make him a bad character in the story or the writing, because although a cliché, it is well written. I think the issue is not between writing which relies on genre specific tropes and clichés versus writing that is fully aware of the clichés and tropes of the genre and tries to subvert them with irony or pomo meta stuff. Both can have their place and if done well lead to great masterpieces in writing, film or games. Take for instance the lord of the rings books and something like monty pythons holy grail movie, both feature fantasy - sword and sorcery - elements (as well as references to real world/historical things) but while Tolkien went great lengths in creating a believable and serious world (inventing languages and world myths such as in the Simarilion) , monty python does the inverse and subverts some of the things in the genre which have become a commonplace with irony and a lot of 'fourth wall' breaking (e.g. the whole horse riding concept, the anarcho-communist peasant, etc.). I think the issue at hand is thus not if BG3 belongs to one of these categories and which one is the best, for me the issue is that Larian tries to do both at the same time (e.g. the nautiloid intro is def. not trying to subvert fantasy cliché but rather bringing them in all their grandeur vs. the dual wielding salamis) but fails to connect this in a coherent whole. IMO I see two main reasons for this.
First of all the whole story and writing is simply incoherent and full of plot holes as well as deus ex machina solutions in terms of world-crafting (where the fuck is our camp located and why can't we simply walk there ? Our Vampire Spawn needs to be a 'special' one only to be able to exists in-game - in the day that is - lorewise ) and protagonists (what happens when a gith, a follower of Shar, a vampire-spawn dandy, and a Wizzard with a nuke in his chest sit around a campfire sounds more like the intro to a stupid dnd dad-joke than that it sets the stage for an intriguing and credible fantasy plot).

And second, I think Larian should really make a hard choice and stick to it whether they want to write BG3 primarily as a serious fantasy story with some genre subversing and tongue in cheek fourth wall breaking elements or if it wants BG3 to be a modern ironic and comedic subversion of the fantasy genre with some secondary 'serious' elements as anchor points for the story.

Both are viable in my opinion but you can't have both equally present at the same time as it just feels like listening to two different narrators - one an ancient scribe writing a lore conform account of the story from the catacombs of Spellhold, the other a modern day edgy meme-lord that grow up on rick and morty - constantly interrupting each other. So for the moment both those who want seriousness and those who prefer a lighter comedic atmosphere feel annoyed because its unclear as to which 'voice' is the main one and neither is to blame because the game's story fails to position itself as either a serious story with comedic undertones or a comedy with serious undertones. If the writing would be more straightforward in this or better at integrating these two styles and address a lot of the narrative plotholes and internal contradictions people would be less upset about it IMO.