Posts tagged bg3

referencees:

langernameohnebedeutung:

Lae"zel’s character and her entire situation at the beginning of the game becomes so much more funny when you find out she’s 22. It makes so much sense. Imagine you’re 22 and you’re exposed to this dangerous toxin or chemical or something - but not to worry, you learnt that this can be easily fixed, you just need to dial 911 real quick. Common knowledge. Everyone knows that. You learnt that in kindergarten, it’s up there with fire alarm drills.

But the people you’re stuck with have no concept of modern medicine and when you say “let’s go to the hospital” they will say shit like “i think they kill people at the hospital” and “we should ask this swamp lady” or “this guy over there told me about this homoeopathic healer kind of guy but he got abducted” or “this random bard wants to help” and “I’m not going to dial 911 because I don’t want the government to know my home address” or “maybe we should consider a deal with Satan”. And then a bunch of them KEEP consuming the chemical because it makes them “stronger”. One guy might explode for unrelated reasons. You have a few days before this situation is getting critical and suddenly they’re solving crime and doing general charity for the community.

And FOR SOME REASON you still try to help these idiots and you STILL want to help them get the cure even though they all keep insisting the “doctors” at the “hospital” might try to “kill them” and they don’t have insurance. And you keep telling them to just. go. to. the. hospital. before the time runs out and you all die very horribly of a very treatable condition.

And also you’re 22 in a foreign country and you’re responsible for shepherding this gaggle of idiots who are all ranging anywhere from 24 to 240 years old.

And the funniest part of all of it is they were right. You show up and the hospital tries to kill you.

y-rhywbeth2:

y-rhywbeth2:

I always keep coming back to the Durge/Bhaal undertones because Durge and Orin (and Helena) get no resolution with the shit going on in their backstories.

Helena’s already dead.

Orin gets to have a very understandable nervous breakdown before she dies, the closest she will ever see to sympathy is the pc telling her she was abused, and after her death them calling her father out (even Durge can call him vile). For all the good that does Orin at this point. But she’s dead and we’re never talking about this again.

Then there’s the Blood Wedding, and ‘well,’ I argued with myself, "there are other meanings of the word "wed.“ But then there’s the multiplayer dialogue that happens if Durge doesn’t face Orin and fight her where Sceleritas flat out calls it "leaving the wedding at the altar’ and oh no, that was intentional after all! And the whole thing in the cut but still present in the files scene with the gnoll where Bhaal forces you to think about him during sex/rape.

Not going into how both were presumably subject to the Ecstasy of Murder, and the Bhaalists’ obsession with breeding Bhaal’s kids as per BG2 and 3. Plus, it’s not necessarily a norm, but nor is the Bhaalist incest an isolated incident, as per the Gugari on the other side of the continent.

There is no closure and barely any acknowledgment for either of them, it just gnaws a hole into my brain, sits there forever unresolved and rakes claws through my brain unbearably.

#Gortash REALLY had his work cut out for him this time#like how do you sexually manipulate a partner who’s used to THAT#we’re talking several standard deviations worse than porn brain

Came back to think about this one, like canonically it appears Gortash just opened the box and went nope. Not even trying. Apparently guro and necrophilia is just not his thing. He’s just going to try for the mild version of the horrific parental issues by hitting the praise kink buttons (which of course he knows where they are, because they’re almost exactly like his. Also I’m assigning him a divinity kink).

Lord Enver Gortash: I see murder as a grim necessity, to provoke a desired response from those who witness it. To Orin, it was a pleasurable pastime.
I don’t even want to know what it is to you. [dev: speaking about murder, to a mass murderer. hint of disgust]

But that’s ok, for me: This is what Ketheric is for.


#for a deity who detests life Bhaal is strangely into propagating it#sex should not appeal to you! at all! stop!

It makes a tactical amount of sense that Bhaal wants as many beings on the planet as possible to be extensions of himself, obedient and driven to kill.

But for a guy who despises the natural world in its entirety and shuns it in favour of things that spit on it like aberrations and undead, he sure does like the act. (Although I do wonder if this is a BG3 thing, since Bhaalists are apparently supposed to be cold and detached and violence as "sensuality’ is supposed to be Malar, in direct contrast. Then again we have Ed Greenwood saying all the gods are sexual beings, so…).

bharv:

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She stills, her brow furrowed for a moment as she looks over every corner. Then he sees her lips part ever so softly, and her hand moves to trace the edges of the lines. 
“Is this how you see me, Enver?”

From The Portrait.

So I had the absolute bloody (ha) delight of being able to commission the incredible @lokorum to paint the sadly unnamed portrait of an anonymous sitter from Lord Gortash’s private collection. I am just so thrilled at how it turned out, thank you for your patience through this process, your encouragement and your kindness. It’s been a delight, and I love it so much, I can’t stop looking at it!

I’d love to know your opinion on BG3 Sarevok as a fellow BG1-2 enjoyer!

Personally I very high-key dislike his existence in the game (as well as the Five tbh). I also dislike that Orin’s genesis seems to ignore any of his ToB character development (even if he remains evil). But honestly, the rest of the Durge/Bhaal subplot I enjoy a lot, so in the Murder Tribunal I simply:

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loadofschist:

y-rhywbeth2:

The short version, on an emotional level:

And while adapting BG3 onto my own personal Realms Sarevok is absolutely not present. He’s fine! He’s one of my Charname’s high priests and, having gotten bored of playing lackey courtesy of his ambitious nature, is now plotting to usurp her as a god (Solath is aware of this, and amused, and encourages him. Godhood can be lonely and boring at times).

The wordier version:

I hate this decision so much. I can actually see how this came about, looking at some parts of BG2. Cernd, Jaheira and Nalia all point out that Sarevok is fundamentally wrong, trapped between life and death and not really either, unable to belong in the world of the living which instinctually rejects him because it shouldn’t be possible to resurrect a Bhaalspawn who died-died, or something:

Cernd: ‘I… I apologize, Sarevok. I know that there are reasons for your presence amongst us, but… you seem so unnatural to me that I cannot help but be repelled. ’

Jaheira: "You exist; you do not live. You will miss the Great Mother’s embrace in time. You are nothing.’

Nalia: "Keep your eyes off me, Sarevok. I don’t know what you are, but I don’t want you near me. […] I know that you’re not truly alive, and not undead. You’re flesh, but not truly alive no matter what [Charname] did to you. So keep away.’

His epilogue mentions that he was restless due to both regrets and his inability to cope with normal life and never found peace. That was interpreted by 5e as his struggles eventually leading to him becoming an addict, and Bhaal - on resurrection - still saw a use in him and promised him restoration of his divine status and power to fuel his ambition in exchange for service. (Of course that means that Orin and Helena would’ve had to have been born a long time before he re-joined the faith, and would’ve been raised Bhaalist by somebody else.))

Bhaal’s personal abilities include inverting emotions, including forcing individuals to love and adore him where they actually hate him, so Sarevok could just be heavily brainwashed.

But I honestly cannot tell whether this is intentional or if nobody was paying attention, because so much of the BG2 references are just plain off.
(Like: Nobody was fighting to be Chosen. The Five wanted to be demipowers subservient to Bhaal, but they were outliers. Everyone else was either trying to stay alive or replace Bhaal. Nobody could even be Chosen, because Bhaal was too dead to Choose. There was only one prophesised heir to the Throne of Blood and it was explicitly Charname. Durge should collapse into ashes and return to Bhaal on death. Sarevok was never a faithful/religious Bhaalist, and he suffered horribly in the afterlife and blackmailed his way out. Larian, what are you TALKING about.)


Ultimately it doesn’t matter if it can be justified, I haaaaate thiiiisss.

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