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BTW I always kill Auntie Ethel. She is the only really evil creature in the game. Other than the Goblins, Drow, Duergar etc. she has no factual agenda and goals other than her pleasure with torturing and killing. I would throw out anybody from the party who showed the slightest doubt what to do with her. On the meta, I would delete the game from the harddrive if you had to support her. Mayrina on the other hand loves her husband. I can understand and always help her.
More likely a chaotic neutral being to me: she is as providing as the mother nature herself, and as merciless as the mother nature herself. Gale talks about some mortal's folly, and just like Karsus and Gale, those who seek help from that hag had each their own kind of folly. She is the type that as long as you don't cross her nor obsessed on something, then you will be fine. The tiefling nanny had her pot setup right next to Ethel's, yet she was left unharmed. So does the rest of tieflings and druids, except for the one on warehouse guard duty(but she will be fine, any priest in Baldur's Gate can cure her). If you reject her offer, she just won't push you. Will the Absolute and its agents do the same? Those are the really evil creatures in the game. Auntie? Only half evil as them.
I see it differently. Mother nature does not exist, there is a bundle of natural rulesets you can learn, it's always the same, predictable, without emotions. Ethel is a trap, a lyer, a creature (?) which has pleasure in killing and torturing people, at best she sees others as stuff she can kick around or destroy. She is the insane serial killer in the world. It's stupid to ask her for help, of course. But if no people would come to her, she would lure them because she needs living stuff to play with. The druids etc. she does not touch because she doesn't want a fight but only victims, like any criminal.
The Absolute is of course evil, he/she/it has to, that's because of the primitive ethical system of DnD. Any simple story needs a villain. Otherwise, after you killed x thousand goblins, you could perhaps ask yourself moral questions, as your behavior objektively is the same or worse than that of your victims, you are a mass killer. You are the hero because you kill for the greater good, luckily the game tells you so. If you side with the goblins, you know you are playing the "evil way".
