#literally only have lae'zel

[endlessnightarts]

My Not Dark Urge Just An Evil Bastard run is going such that Lae'zel is the emotional and moral compass of what's left of the party at this point and I dunno how much longer she's gonna put up with us

Faerun is doomed :|

[orchid-n-petals]

So I've already shared parts of this on a discord server, but I have to scream about Ketheric Thorm on here as well. Obviously spoilers about the character under the cut! It's a long one.

The entirety of act 2 is about him, right? Jaheira, Shadowheart and numerous other NPCs shit on him for his fickle faith. First Selune, then Shar, then, as we meet him, Myrkul. You hear about his changes of faith on a whim, you hear that he's the person responsible for the shadow curse, he is painted as a villain, plain and simple.

You can figure it out pretty early on that Isobel was resurrected and that she is his daughter; the detail as well that he wants Isobel alive is so on the nose, it gives him away completely but there are still a few questions that remain unanswered, mainly about his faith.

And then you get to the mausoleum and the picture assembles; this entire tragedy, the death of hundreds if not thousands and the complete ruination of a landscape was all, ALL because you had this absolutely wrenched, heartbroken father who had lost everything and nobody answered his grief. He was left woefully alone, the Goddess whose daughter his daughter was involved with did nothing to save Isobel.

Imagine outliving your wife and your daughter. Imagine dedicating your life to fight the Lady of Loss, your Lady of Silver's enemy, and then be left so completely alone and in silence with your grief, with your loss. It's so, so poetic how and why he turned from Selune, and it's so understandable as well; he broke. His spirit completely broke. He couldn't deal with that void of having lost the only two important people in his life, seemingly undeservedly so. He was going mad with this and a lot of his ire was likely targeted at Aylin who, in his eye, represented Selune; she's literally her daughter, after all, and it was implied that even before the deaths of his family, he sort of saw Aylin courting Isobel as Selune taking his daughter from him, despite his service. This relationship was clearly not seen by him as a boon of "giving his daughter to the Moon-maiden".

His ways in the past clearly didn't spare him from tragedy and having to cope with it (which he clearly didn't, he snapped under the weight of his grief). He was clearly angry and unable to do anything, furious and helpless, which is a dangerous combination. A good part of his first change of heart must have been fuelled by a sense of revenge.

But then Shar didn't provide any balm to his aching heart either. If you read his letters in Grymforge and in act 2, he is so focused on enacting the will of Shar because he believes that healing lies in oblivion. Everything would be easier if he could just forget, if the damn world could just forget, if nothing was remembered because without Melodia and Isobel, nothing was worth remembering.

Then came Myrkul. Literally the only god who was not only able, but WILLING to give back his daughter to him. Imagine spending your all, EVERYTHING you have to serve two gods who would not give a single shit about the greatest suffering in your life. You were basically nothing, your loyalty didn't matter for shit, everything that was taken from you amounted to no recognition whatsoever: you should simply cope and seethe. Your grief will not simply go unanswered (which is not inherently antagonising) but ignored.

And then comes this supposedly evil entity who can alleviate your pain just like that, snap of a finger and it's a done deal.

I am so serious when I say that I believe Ketheric's main incentive was to extend Aylin's immortality to Isobel as well. You can read in her diary that she feels a taint after having came back, and there are things not even Selune can cleanse, but at this point, Ketheric doesn't care about Selune, vengeance is secondary if not tertiary, he's done that war during his Shar years and what did it give him? Literally nothing.

He doesn't even care about the fact that Isobel is still her cleric. He cares about the single most important fact: Isobel is back. Life is worth living again, there is something for him, and it was not Selune or Shar who gave it to him but Myrkul, and for this singular gift, he would raze the world for the Lord of Bones. Like people can clown on him for being disloyal but the man has the loyalty of a dog bonded to its owner.

He is powerful and is willing to go to insane lengths for crumbs. What is raising a single life for a god? Nothing. It has happened and it will happen again. But Ketheric will go to the ends of the earth to serve the single god who actually listened to him. The one god who didn't ignore him.

He knows that what he does is not the morally upright thing! He is so insanely self-aware that allying with Orin and Gortash and doing this entire plot with them only to then betray them is morally reprehensible at the best of times, he knows that people hate him, etc-etc. He was a Selunite at one point and he's not stupid. He just doesn't care; it could be literal Asmodeus and he wouldn't care as long as he got what he wanted, no matter the price.

He is probably the only one from the three of the chosen who has complete clarity over his situation, he almost sways (if you pass the check during his confrontation), he is not an inherently evil man blinded by power.

But he is inherently loyal to those deserving, and as of the story's standing, completely broken by his grief. In his eyes, at this point, the only one deserving loyalty is the one who actually listened to him. Isobel lives. It doesn't matter that she hates him, that his entire life has fallen apart, that literally nothing else that is good has come of it, because Isobel lives.

I don't think he regrets a single thing. His consciousness might tear at him at the end, but I believe he would do everything over again, exactly as he did, because in the end, his daughter was brought back. Because what would a grieving, broken parent give to bring back their child? Everything. Absolutely everything. And it's such a simply given answer, no second thoughts, no doubts.

Nobody can tell me that this man is fickle. Nobody. This man was willing to burn the world to the ground, create a Boudica destruction layer all by himself for the one single thing he wanted. For any God that would listen.

I don't know, I just have a lot of thoughts about his character.

[moghedien]

you can really tell when someone’s talking about romancing Lae’zel and they never got past the act 1 romance scene with her tbh

[mothmansbuttquack]

Best thing Baldur’s Gate 3 gave me was being able to finally get gendered correctly — and by my favourite / comfort characters, no less.

[aftermathing]

white man experiences racism for the first time. sad!

[zeroducks-2]

Baldur's Gate 3 Ending Spoilers Ahead :)

Okay why The Fuck can't we have a romance ending with the Emperor. Why THE FUCK NOT. WHY. THIS IS UNFAIR. LARIAN YOU ALLOWED ME TO FUCK THE GUY, YOU ALLOWED ME TO TRUST HIM AND BE THERE FOR HIM AND TURN INTO A MINDFLAYER MYSELF, AND THEN I CAN'T HAVE A ROMANCE ENDING? THE FUCK???

[merlinmerlot]

i finally finished bg3

and it only took me [looks at steam]

SIX HUNDRED HOURS

[deadrlngers]

i love how gale is so cringe fail at jumping in game, c'mon old man you can do it i believe in you it's been 20 minutes already please

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

i saw a horrible post so i must rage

I am literally fucking losing it like if you really are (sorry) that fucking stupid and didn't pay any motherfucking attention to the motherfucking information this motherfucking game gives you about what githyanki ascension is and think lae'zel's ascension ending is only fucking questionable and there is literally no fucking cure for your brainrot bc your listening and reading comprehension is dead. lae'zel became lich food, she's dead. she's gone. it's not just ominous, it's bad. she's fucking dead. WITHERS COULDN'T FIND HER.

like for the love of god you can like a negative character development ending, i.e the "bad" ending without trying to twist it like its secretly a good ending.

you are so disingenuous in how much you need g*d!Gale or ascended!ast**rion to be a morally good choice for you to make that you'll treat the extinguishing of lae'zel's life as only ~questionable or try to justify sh*rheart as well its not so bad when it's like did you have your eyes open at all during this character's storyline. genuinely. why would it be bad for a character who has a divine shock collar that gives her unbearable pain every time she committed wrongthink by being herself (and yet she still keeps committing wrongthink for a few decades bc that's just who she is), to then shackle herself to the one who gave her the divine shock collar, esp when one of the major steps towards that is made when she's completely uninformed and just thinks she wants to do that and isn't really aware that the goddess she's about to kill the gay aasimar for had her kidnapped as a child and have regularly had her brutalise her parents and wipe her memory since then for like over 30 years. you can enjoy evilheart but that doesn't really stop it from being the worse ending in terms of how happy she is.

Like, imagine calling it "the endings where characters get what they want" and then saying its bad writing if they're all bad. all that means is that you fundamentally misunderstood the text bc that is an extremely shallow read lol bc none of these people are experiencing the level of contentment they do in their (and i know this is a very scary word but its okay i promise) good endings.

[merchantarthurn]

on the astarion origin run, somewhat committed to roleplaying what i think he'd say or do (i have to be able to Hear him saying the dialogue. if none of them fit, i come up with an alt-line and pick whichever would fit the outcome). party is: wyll, shadowheart, lae'zel

we mash the spider matriarch

lae'zel immediately lets me know she wants me to stab something else with that sword if you catch my drift

ooc i want to romance wyll. but lae'zel is a powerful warrior. oh no.

spend the next long-rest hating myself

[residueradiation]

okay people are gonna be mad at me but please

gay people seeing themselves in characters who are bi in canon are not your enemies

we just rarely ever get any representation, okay?

[theygender]

Apparently the scene you get with Shadowheart if you get her approval all the way up and then tell her you want to get to spend time with her is the same one you're supposed to get at the tiefling party, which means if you trigger it early you may not get any scene with her at the party at all. This made things pretty confusing when I showed up expecting to advance my romance with her and instead she just gave me some generic "lol wine is good huh" dialogue meanwhile every other companion* BUT her was actively trying to jump my bones... Literally just had to beat everyone else off of my Tav with a stick and then go to bed alone 😔

*Except Lae'zel, who instead went on an unprompted rant about how she knew I wanted to fuck her sooo bad but I had Pissed Her Off by making her be Nice to People so now she would NEVER allow me the pleasure of having crazy hot githyanki sex with her. (She propositioned me a few days later anyways)

[crickwater]

I have such a guilt complex abt leaving wyll at camp meanwhile when Orin kidnapped halsin I was like. damn. forgot this dude was here

[ohbutwheresyourheart]

second one of getting to last light inn. i am turned on by an old woman, scorned by a naked cat, and almost start a bar fight with a devil.

[landlordevil]

Ok help me out here. I don't think astarion getting burnt in the sun in the ending was meant to be funny? I keep seeing people say it was treated like a joke and I never got that impression. No, you don't get to comfort him but you don't get that kind of follow up with anyone else either? Like shadowheart just kinda stood there. Halsin stood there. Wyll's ONE LINE was "wait, where's karlach?" And we don't even see Karlach (in the original, not sure if a patch changes this) it's just implied that she's going to die soon. Like none of it is entirely finished so why is him running to hide from the sun the problem for people 🤔

[aftermathing]

Wyll and Astarion are so gay no one else dramatically screams "Damn it Astarion!!" and "Wyll get up you sweet fool!!"