I've summarized it before but it's been a while and some things have been updated so here's another quick summary, under the cut because of allusions to suicide:
Cole kills himself prior to canon by way of train, and ends up in the Cursed Realm. He meets Morro, and initially the two of them don't interact all that much until Morro figures out Cole's supposed to be the master of earth. Morro teaches Cole how to fight, Cole teaches Morro ballet because he doesn't want to owe anything to Morro, and they bond and it's nice and sweet and the Preeminent is looming over everything!
When the Cursed Realm is opened up and Morro and Cole slip out, Morro possesses Lloyd as per usual. Where things change is that Cole comes in separately and pretends to be enemies with Morro, allowing him to get in good graces with the ninja. He sticks around, helping them in their attempts to get the Realm Crystal before Morro can, and finds that it's actually... not that bad, hanging out with these guys.
But Cole knows where his loyalties lie. When the ninja get their hands on the Realm Crystal, Cole steals it to bring to Morro, who uses it to free the Preeminent as they planned. But Cole's time with the ninja had an effect on him, and he really cares a lot about Morro. Like, a lot. And while before that saw him being willing to follow Morro wherever, now (with some nudging from Wu) it's got him moving to work with the ninja to stop the Preeminent. There's a brief fight between him and Morro that doesn't do anything but affirm that they both really care about each other.
When the Preeminent's defeated and the ninja are victorious, where does that leave Cole and Morro? Wu offers to house the two, but Morro needs time and space after everything, so he and Cole set off to parts unknown. They don't return until Day of the Departed, and even once they have bodies again they're still not certain about their future. But they're here, and they're together, and there's a whole wide world and a whole wide life for them to live. So why not try?
I do think Withers has a really subtle background character arc in bg3. Because at the start it is really clear he doesn't want to be here and he's being forced to clean up his mess by Helm and probably Ao. He doesn't really care either. Everything ends so nothing really matters, he'd like to go back to his paperwork now please.
Except he's stuck babysitting a bunch of traumatized dumbasses as they stumble into dealing with the most recent bad idea of his three fuck-up disappointments. So he brings them back when they die for a pittance, lets them pay for some vengeful ghosts to come back as flesh and blood to wreak bloody vengeance on the Absolute, and starts to... comment, on what's going on, as he follows them on their adventure.
Next thing you know Withers is like, doing things unprompted. He refuses to bring back Alfira (or Quil) but that's an act of compassion, keeping the poor girl from the Urge and letting her rest, his actual duty as a god of death. He tells Arabella to follow her destiny and does that thing to make her grief go away which honestly freaks me out but seems to be him trying to help her. He shows up at Moonrise and prompts us to consider why the Dead Three would want a bunch of soulless illithids that would give them no power, getting us to think of the big picture.
And by the end (especially if you do a resist!Durge playthrough) Withers is actively interfering and seems genuinely invested! He brings Durge back from the dead, free of their father! He encourages us before the final fight with the Netherbrain! He's real fucking smug that the Dead Three lost when he never seemed to care about the destruction they caused before! He throws a reunion party and many of his lines are genuinely touching or kind! Especially if a companion died permanently! He has tea with Gale's mom and Tara! He's like, socializing and shit! Yes, everything is temporary and we all die, but there's great beauty in fighting for that precious time and living it to the fullest!
Basically Wither's character arc is this meme, all because Helm made him go outside and touch grass.
the adventuring party/spaceship crew storytelling dynamic of characters never really getting to be their own people outside of the shadow of the group has done incalculable damage to genre fiction
Sasuke is Out! Sasuke is Doing things! What will Sasuke do?! I have no idea!!! I've never gotten this far in the story before, so I have no idea how things are going from here!!!! But Sasuke is Loose!!!!!!
Quoting this post to myself as I see Sasuke walking around and doing things. I haven't seen this guy do anything in like a hundred episodes. It's so exciting