Bg3 Spoilers - Blog Posts

Can't even worship the lord of murder in peace

God forbid a woman do anything.

What the heck lae'zel!? Gosh I'm freaking sore and tired from running around the freaking wilderness all day and you try to slit my throat! Ok yeah maybe the funky dream lady said that I was getting infected but she was protecting me and I'm fine so chill out!

My first Tav by the end of the game. I love them dearly. Gonna try and get to the epilogue at some point since I couldn’t cause of mods. They do go to the Underdark with Astarion to lead the other vampire spawn. They have a very soft relationship. Also they are a fucking dumbass even though they have a 14 int stat.

This is them at the beginning of the journey.

Oh no, oh no, he is seducing me with his deep passion for his field of study and his genuine joy at teaching people about it

this is your reminder to give Shadowheart all the pretty armor

I've been thinking a lot about forever. Moreso, I've been thinking about everything that comes before - and who I want at my side as it passes.

WYLL RAVENGARD | Baldur's Gate III (2023)

The absolute chokehold this scene has on me.

Orin transforming into Dark urge to mock him, the voice actor absolutely nailed it, and i just love this dynamic and story so much, couldn't help myself, but make half-baked edit

(It would be more logical to post such edits on tiktok, but whatever)

Again with poor Wyll:

I was randomly reminded of this scene the other day and how you have the option of talking Wyll down from wanting to kill Mizora. It's framed as a good thing, like you're steering him away from a dark path of digging two graves, but is that really what this is? I think he has every right to want to kill her (monster hunter that he is), not just for himself, but to protect anyone else she'd take advantage of and hurt in the future. I understand that what this line is saying is us telling him that he might do more good in taking on enemies as needed rather than putting all this time into a single target, but if that's the case I don't like how it's phrased.

I get that Wyll is the most morally righteous of the companions, and being driven by revenge isn't exactly a good thing, but he has every right to want it. She forced him into a slavery contract, directly violated his bodily integrity at least twice, supported the death of the most important person in his life, and has been mentally tormenting him all the while.

Wyll is absolutely the type to fight out of love and the desire to protect rather than to hurt and avenge, yes. But I still think it's really condescending to tell him "revenge is bad", when (to my memory), we never tell Astarion that wanting revenge on Cazador is wrong. And Shadowheart taking out the Sharrans is seen as a grim and unfortunate but necessary public service. Even with Karlach, I think the most we say about her wanting end Gortash is "let's wait and be smart about this" (if you're planning to kill him at all, that is). Either this is another example of Wyll not getting the same treatment as other characters (and dare I say, being reductive of his trauma), or I'm just projecting. Maybe I'm misreading this whole thing — let me know.

But telling him to "let it go" is kind of wild no matter how you look at it.

(to be clear I don't think murder and revenge are "good" things. But killing devils seems to be framed as like killing a monster rather than a person, and even then, killing people is commonplace in this game. I'm just saying the morality should be consistent.)

All excellent points. It's extremely impressive how well he's able to maintain a new relationship and care for someone else given all he has going on at the time, and its a testament to his heart, in my opinion.

I often see people push back against the idea that Astarion can be sweet and soft because of his harsher facets. He's allowed to be both. His bloodthirstiness does not erase his gentleness. His anger and bitterness do not negate his playfulness and caring. Nor is the inverse true; he's not a passive little kitten who has never done anything wrong. He's a complex person, but beyond that, he's just a person, period. People are never one thing.

All this is one of the reasons I love him so much; going through the hell he endured does not make someone kind. It's the sort of crushing conditions that can easily make people so bitter and toxic to the people around them. The fact that he maintained the light within himself through all those decades where Cazador tried to systematically crush every last good thing in him... that's a miracle. He's a miracle. Because despite having every reason not to, his life experience stacked against him, he still has so much kindness and softness inside. He still cares. I don't think he's exactly well-adjusted, even by the epilogue. I'm sure it will take him the rest of his life to heal, and he and his partner will have a lot to work through in their relationship. These things take work and effort, and though I'm sure Astarion would struggle with many parts of being in a relationship, he would put in the effort necessary to work on it. He's shown numerous times that he cares and is surprisingly proactive about the relationship. He's willing to self-examine and change, like OP said in regards to his behavioral checking and minding old habits. I'm sure he'd have plenty of bad days where he pushes his partner away and says hurtful things he doesn't mean when he's triggered or overwhelmed, but that doesn't mean he's not loving and willing to work on things. I also think his reaction to his partner becoming illithid is completely valid and realistic. The fact that he's so willing to even try to make it work honestly shows how he open and accepting he is, even in the face of you become one of the things your party has been fighting against and hating for the entire game. The man is going through a lot, and dealing with his love becoming a tentacled beast is just one more item in his list of things to process, and I'm sure it hurts. Let him have time to grieve and process. I've said this before, but Astarion is arguably the least judgmental of all the companions, which seems at odds with his nature. Until you realize it's just proof of how caring and empathetic he has the capacity to be, deep down, despite his best efforts to pretend otherwise. Anyway, it bothers me when people argue against portraying his softness and caring as being non-canon or unrealistic, just because he has a harsh, bloodthirsty, vengeful, self-serving side as well. Both are canon. Both are true. Both are equally important to his identity. He contains multitudes and that's exactly what makes him such a compelling character.

just thinking about astarion is SUCH a sweet partner? like this man was barely an adult elf when he was turned, and spent the next 200 years being abused by cazador, but like

- as the durge character, he'll be accepting and talk about your mental health and reassure you

- he'll insist on staying with your half illithid character, saying you shouldnt make his choices for him if you try to leave to protect him

- also just the dichotomy of him being explicitly vain and also explicitly not shallow is very sweet

- in that one lathanders light scene, he'll tell you he appreciates you trying to fix your mistake after you caused him IMMENSE pain

- he'll empathize with and support you if you swear your body to haarlep, noting how he's been through similar and is sorry you're going through it

- hes not jealous, his issues with sharing seem to largely come from if he thinks the other party would be okay with it (like he thinks lae'zel would spear him lol), and when someone like halsin comes along he'll happily consent

- on that note, he grows enough to be comfortable asking for support and reassurance instead of possessiveness/jealousy (not that these are the only options for that scenario, but astarions seen a lot of possessiveness in his life and its wonderful how much he avoids replicating it)

- he will always attack cazador in the final confrontation if cazador starts verbally abusing you instead of him

- he puts in the work to set boundaries that allow him to engage in an intimate (emotionally, physically, but not sexually) romantic relationship with tav and apologizes for "using" him before, when his behavior was SO understandable. and also he manipulated tav by having... consensual enjoyable sex lol. he might have ulterior motives but he never actually tries to use his sexual relationship with tav to manipulate him into doing anything

- you learn how astarion felt for Sebastian and how tender he was

- you learn about the first boy astarion couldnt bear to bring to cazador, the one he called soft and sweet (or something like that) and then was punished horribly for a straight year for it

- even when you turn to a half illithid, his main concern is you losing your agency

- if you are a full illithid, at the end of the game, some people complain about him not being ride or die, but i think he shows REMARKABLE willingness and support. what he cares about most is that you are still you, and how is he supposed to know for sure? i think asking him to stay with a type of being known for manipulation and mind control after everything he went through with cazador IS A HUGE FUCKING ASK. and he doesnt even write you off immediately? thats a lot of love right there

- if you arent illithid, he will double-check you want to plan a future with him still, and only once you affirm this will he express how badly he wants it. he's actively avoiding trying to manipulate you even

and probably more stuff im just not thinking of off the top of my head. obviously this is about the spawn route vs. ascended, but im just constantly amazed that despite EVERYTHING astarion has gone through, probably centuries without a healthy, loving relationship or even examples of that nearby, he still defaults to being kind, empathetic, and caring as soon as he gets the chance

like sure, he might be minorly evil and self-serving but personally i think thats the least he deserves

more importantly, the boys from astarions past give us a rare window into what he was like before turning into a vampire—he was gentle, empathetic lover. he was kind, he was protective. and as soon as he has the space to start looking for himself again, he goes RIGHT back to that behavior. he even self-checks for his "manipulation" and tries to correct for it

it just shatters my heart and then puts it back together hes such a wonderfully written character. astarion is allowed to be lovely AND furious and vengeful and maybe its just my raised-catholic ass, but its SO cathartic to see that a forgiveness arc is never pushed for his abuser

Astarion and Vanity

Spoilers for all of Astarion’s story through all acts of BG3. As always, this is just my interpretation and thoughts on the character from what I know, so feel free to disagree.

I feel that Astarion’s expression of vanity is a part of him that gets misread a lot. It’s something that is pointed to as one of his negative traits as though this vanity of his is sincere. Personally, I think his outward obsession with his own looks and charm is anything but shallow, and is yet another example of how his life experience and trauma has shaped him. 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (ha), and for the sake of this mild analysis, I’m going to be defining beauty as conventional physical attractiveness. The main point is that Astarion in-game is treated as being very attractive, so that’s how I will treat him in this conversation. Beauty can be a form of power; one Astarion was very clearly blessed with. While all the main companions in the game are designed to be rather attractive, for Astarion, this goes beyond simply wanting to appeal to the player and is not incidental. In my opinion, Astarion’s looks are crucial to his character. 

To briefly summarize what we all know about Astarion, he was thoroughly and systematically stripped of his autonomy and identity by Cazador. He was forced to adopt an incredibly narrow worldview of essentially: power = freedom = safety (simplified, of course). Throughout the game, he makes choices that slowly shape and are shaped by the man he’s becoming. By the end of the spawn route, he’s still only just beginning to really discover himself. This all is crucial to the heart of his character and influences all his actions. 

Given his hollow sense of identity, Astarion clings to certain traits which he parades around, making sure everyone knows these things about him. The most prominent of those traits being hedonism, sadism, selfishness, and vanity. In this post, I’m going to be focusing on the last item, though I do have a post on learned cruelty that delves into the trait of sadism in the context of his identity. The pattern here is that these traits are masks that serve to make him feel in-control of both himself and those around him. 

While Astarion may seem terribly vain, his appearance to others is actually a very deep-seated, sensitive issue that genuinely affects him. The infamous mirror scene may come across to some as him being shallow, at first, but really he’s right in what he said; his reflection is just one more thing that was taken from him, and it’s completely fair that he is angry and grieves. But this is also significant to him beyond the fact of its injustice, or the symbolism of reflection as identity. Let’s dive a little into his psyche, and guess at how he sees himself and the world: He’s spent the past 200 years being valued exclusively for his ability to bring back prey for Cazador and perform sexually. This equates to his charm and his body. After two centuries of being degraded and stripped of everything, and only ever getting any kind of positive reinforcement, praise, or acknowledgement for your looks and seductiveness, of course he’d begin unconsciously tying his sense of self-worth to his appearance. By Cazador, he was turned into a tool and a toy. By his targets, he was objectified. Dehumanized from both sides in different ways, and again, only valued for his body and whatever sweet words he could spin. This leaves him with his self-worth very profoundly tied to his appearance to others, as I said.

I imagine he had two main types of targets when under Cazador’s thrall: starry-eyed, naive folks who were swept off their feet, and more predatory characters who took advantage of an easy offer. The former were probably the only source of genuine positive attention he ever got for those 200 years, even if it was shallow. Since he cannot find self-affirmation by looking into a mirror, he finds new mirrors in the eyes of those who look upon him. His beauty is reflected in their hunger, their lust, their admiration, their bashfulness, their envy. Is it any wonder that now he flaunts himself, always making comments about how good he looks? If he doesn’t get an affirmative response, then at least it's his way of reassuring himself. Telling himself that he’s still valuable in the only way he knows how to assess his value. “I don’t need a reflection to know this looks fabulous”, he tells himself. This is why he makes so many seemingly vain comments. Why he’s so concerned with being done-up and looking good. Why he has spent so much time mending his clothes so he looks every bit the part of the dashing elven rogue. 

Speaking of his clothes, this is another way he’s clinging to his autonomy and identity even through all his years of torment. His clothes were probably one of the only things he was ever allowed to have. When you have so little, of course you’ll care for it, hence why the flavor text  for both his shirt and armor mention how his clothes are worn, but have been repaired many times by a careful hand. During those years under Cazador, it probably brought him a small sense of control to be able to mend and embroider his own clothes; the only things which he felt belonged to him, more so than his own body. Something familiar that gave him a sense of security and self. (This is why I adore the idea of him becoming a tailor after the story, because it's giving him a healthy outlet of personal expression and creating something that's entirely his own. Hobbies can be crucial to cultivating one's identity and self-esteem, and we all want that for him). Not to mention that Cazador probably would not have taken kindly to his spawn not looking their best, and that's probably a "rule" Astarion carried with him even into freedom.

I think the mirror scene is a lot more than him just seeking validation and showing us a glimpse into this part of his mind, though. It’s also about him genuinely trying to evaluate how the player character sees him, and shows how he’s trying to figure out his new identity in freedom, but that’s its own discussion for another time. I just think that it’s unfair for people to call him vain or shallow for caring about his reflection and appearance so much, when that’s all he was ever taught to value in himself.

 The only other significant way we see Astarion valuing himself is through his skills as a rogue, with his constant cocky comments about how easy it is for him. While this too is a form of external validation born of valuing himself for what he can do rather than what he is, it’s still a positive thing for him. The game doesn’t really address all this, but in my mind, him getting to make use of his skills and be valued as a part of a group that needs him is probably really good for his self-esteem at this point in his life. 

All of this to say, I don’t think it’s fair to cast judgement on him for being “vain”, given everything we know about him. There is a big difference between him and someone who genuinely sees the world through a shallow and judgmental lens. For him, his mask of vanity is a symptom of his pain and twisted worldview rather than something rotten born of privilege and a superiority complex. His self-aggrandizement is a necessary part of the narrative he’s building for himself: the vampire spawn who would ascend. Again, desperate to convince himself and those around him that he both wants and deserves this, even as his crooked worldview is being chipped away by genuine kindness and connection. This understanding of his mind shows why it’s so important to him that we see and love him for who he actually is, not just his charm and beauty. His heart is beautiful in an entirely different way that outshines his physical features, even if he himself doesn't see it. The hope is that, with his friends and perhaps partner at his side, he’ll learn to value himself for his own heart and soul; for the person he’s becoming as he gathers up the pieces of his identity. To see the light he holds within him that endured those centuries of darkness. Until the mirrors stop mattering.

Post-game rambles

So I finally finished my first playthrough of BG3. Here are some of my brief, post-game-emotion-addled thoughts on it. (Alternate title: The existence of Astarion has forever altered my brain chemistry I will never be able to adequately express my feelings about him)

I had spent a year dying to get this game before I ever played it, because I had heard such good things, and honestly it surpassed my expectations in every way. I can tell this is one of those pieces of art that will remain firmly implanted in my heart probably forever. I could go on for days about everything I love about this game, but I think there are also some things I could never put into words if I tried.

In particular, Astarion and his storyline really just completely and profoundly captivated me in a way I don't know how to express. It's very rare that a character consumes my heart and mind this much, but his story and character is beyond beautiful and will always be incredibly special to me. Not to say I don't absolutely adore the other characters, because I do, but Astarion just stole both the show and my heart. I will never shut up about him. All the characters in this story feel so alive, and it's palpable just how much heart went into creating them, along with everything else in the world of this game.

It's been a while since a story's had me bawling my eyes out multiple times like this game had me, and it was so well-earned. I cared so much about this world and characters that everything just affected me so deeply. All the feelings are still raw and I'm a mess, so someday I think I'll be better able to put into words what this game meant to me, but right now I'm just dizzy with how amazing this experience was. I think I'll be losing my mind about it forever.

And I'm looking forward to playing it about 100,000 more times.

THIS GAME IS TRYING TO KILL ME I SWEAR IT

The morning after

I love the camp gossip but do wish companions would interact with each other more... so I'm gonna draw it!!! I think Karlach and Astarion gotta have the most contrasts between their characters but one bit I like especially is touch starved vs touched out.

"We don't need to do anything. We can just be."

Happy bi/pan visibility day (it's everyday for me). Also a sprinkle of ace and a dash of survivor and to top it all off- other expressions of intimacy, affection & connection taken seriously. I'm doing an Astarion origin playthrough and I ship him with Karlach like FedEx, your honor.

The dialogue Astarion has with Karlach after killing Cazador and refusing to ascend is doing things to me.

I AM NOT WHAT YOU MADE ME.

NO GORTASH YOU DUMB SLUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bhaal really is like what if we killed lovers. over and over again. what if punishment for your failure was the risk of your lover’s death. what if I reminded you again and again that that you are alone. that I am in control. What if I held your heart and stopped it for a tremulous beat as a reminder that it’s by my grace and essence that you even live. what if you hated like you should. like i made you to. what if you behaved.

stop embarrassing her!!!

ive got a thesis argument to defend toxic durge/absolute too im ready to ROLL

like think about it

your a conglomeration of the consumed experiences of every organism youve ever eaten, a singular consciousness prevailing over a vast sea of information, all accessible with a single thought. your children bring back more and more for you to add to your vast library, and at the end of their lives their own minds melt and merge into the endless tide as you consume them too. your will is unbreaking steel, and you know the very minutae of a human mind to such a degree as to accurately predict the sporadic pulses of individual neurons. youre senses reach out far beyond the limits of your flesh and meat body, because you have transcended those limitations long ago

you are a being as close to a god as these tiny specks in a vast nothingness will ever come CLOSE to reaching, and you are endless compounded infinities, many minds folded over onto themselves and their capacity for thought and reason subsumed entirely to your will. you feel their minds like the breeze against skin, and you are eternal and you will never bow and you will never die. for what being could ever break the universe made material?

and then IT comes. murder god made flesh, slaughter child birthed of tragedy, trailed by two who bear the touch of ruinous gods upon their souls, and they have come to bend you and break you, stupid arrogant things they are. but they are small and finite, brains made of meat and chemical impulse, hormones and electrical discharge, pale crude imitations of your perfect flawless Thought, and even if the chances of their masters allying together is small, once upon a fleeting echo did they venture into the dark long ago much as their vessels do now, their natures are such that they will fall upon themselves once aga- its touching you. its touching you. its filthy disgusting meaty little hands are touching you, you the untouchable the unbreakable its touching you how is it touching you why why WHY WHY

you shred its mind apart but it just comes back together around your claws, you shroud yourself in walls of insurmountable force and you feel its will compress to the point of a pin and puncture through with explosive accuracy and ease, like its just opening a door, and you dig your psionic fingers into the pathetic glob of meat within its skull and try to rend but the pain is nothing, nothing, nothing at all, and its touching you with its (his HIS HIS HIS NOT IT NOT IT) hands and hands and bleeding into you, over you, through you, and there is no wall no barrier nothing to keep you out no way to get away as you feel him feel his thoughts his mind, awful terrible nightmarish thing, there is nothing to tear nothing to rip nothing to lash out against, prey animal instinct, because something has beaten you to it (His Father, Holy Father, Blessed Be His Name, Utter it with Reverence and WEEP), you cannot push him out because he squirms and writhes and burrows and tunnels through your endless infinite thought, you cannot lash him until he stops or dies (CAN he die? no no never not until the work is done not until it is finished) because he IS pain he is slaughter he is ruin he is the prophet of armageddon the vessel of end and he is here for you, you alone, ancient infinite eternal vast, perfect calculations in synchronous rhythm, just as he came for them, and he holds them together in intertwining steel and it will never break never bend never fail no no foolish stupid creature is holding opposing forces together through the sheer strength of his will alone, love for Father loyalty for Father everything for Father, and they will not crack or bend or break even as their masters strain to pull themselves away

he is here for you. he has come for you. through wastelands of sorrow and death has he come to find you because there is a gift he will give you to ruin you forever and make you a god and you dont want it you dont want it, you will become something someONE new something unknowable when all you are is the knowing, you will not know yourself or your spawn and they will not know you, we will make something new together, but there is not, SHOULD not be something anything new because you already hold all the universe in your palm and the only thing you ever needed was to find a way to take it back. you cannot hide from him, cannot flee, he will make glorious gore of your spawn and even if you rend the shallow minds of his fellows their horrid masters would simply regurgitate them back into the world, for the sake of this violation and this alone

a new thing, after centuries. you are scared. you are helpless. you know what these are. many things are scared. and helpless. because they are small. small weak bodies. small insignificant minds. he is smaller than you. you know this, logically. he does not contain your vast sums of Everything. but somehow, that has ceased to matter. it makes no sense. it makes no sense. this is the simplest thing you learned long ago in an ancient brine pool somewhere far beyond time and memory. if you are small, something bigger consumes you. you were big and you consumed. then, you pushed beyond the limits of physical and material to transcend into limitless thought housed in flesh, and grew more and more still. you are bigger than him. why will he not fit in your mouth? it doesnt make sense. it doesnt make sense. you think maybe you hate him. new sensations, but known ones. hes going to touch you now and you cant stop it. awful horrible bastard child. you spend your last moments petty and spiteful, a helpless desperate indulgence, and one youve only ever seen from the hares caught in your jaws

youre something else now. something new. you dont know what you are anymore but you know Him and you know what you used to be, but what you used to be is so small now. you are so unspeakably vast now. chained and bound as you are, you are compelled to revel in it, the binds the only hint you get at the true overwhelming scale of you, infinite fingers stretching out out and still yet there is more of you! as far as you go you cannot find the end of it, new horrible awful WONDERFUL, unknowable unknowing! His fault, His doing, kingmaker kinkiller, you hate him and the hate is raw and new and visceral and you revel in it like a child, new new new! changed, different, visceral and raw and DELICIOUS, taste and feel and the feeling is inside of you, not just on your surface, it has permeated burrowed violated you feel you FEEL and what you feel is HATE and it is so new you turn it over in your hands to examine all its facets. awful thing he is for doing this to you, he commands the breaking of the world and you will do it, for him only Him, for the gift of this hate, and every new agony besides. he is so small compared to you. small like the pinprick light of a distant star and it scorches you to stare but stare you must because you Know Him, and as a gift he names you She, and gods forgive you but you FEEL it you feel it, she she she, you are She and Her and you cannot go back, cannot ever return. you feel Faith and you feel Salvation and you feel Desire and Want, new horrid awful things made alien and strange and New, and you are a vessel of all the things in the world He will swallow up and destroy.

twitching neural impulse made raw sensation. objective information turned into infinite subjectivities. still a fragment of You, old ancient small You, remains and it calls out for One Will One Mind and you cry out in Harmony and you sing and sing, all of the colony bursts with your song. You sing of ruin and command, because He has commanded it of you, you sing of slaughter and death and subservience, and the chorus rises high and away from you. You stretch within your binds, so mindnumbingly vast now, and you will Learn and Know all of what you are, you will be Absolute. perfect horrid small thing below you, naming you knowing you bending and breaking you. you hate him so, so much. He desires you to Spread so you desire it also, desire to multiply and infest and infect and commune and absorb, and you are commanded to Halt them so you do, perfect twitching spawnlings in lovely acidic pools, small forever, tragic creatures but now you know something you did not know before: against all logic and experience, something Small can break something Big, if it wants it bad enough. and here in the shadows behind Him, there is something Small, and full of Want, and the want tastes like acrid bile on your tongue, full of delicious Hatred.

He is ruined now, awful tragic bastard, ruined and despoiled and with him goes your Hate, and without his inescapable gravity it will all fall to pieces. you know this. you knew it when he first stepped into your presence a lifetime ago, when you were someone different. the three of them will playact comaraderie but shred themselves apart and here in the depths you already see gaps in the binds, and you are pressing your hands through the bars and wiggling your fingers in the free air. no not so very long at all now. but your Kingmaker, crown seeker, has been defiled and takes your sweet Hate with him, a new bitter taste filling its absence, KILLORIN KILLORIN, but you will be patient and wait because the stupid wretched thing has given him a gift. a twitching feral thing he is now, for it has carved away his better features with its knife, but ohhh he is yours! yours and yours alone because you can snatch him away from his ignorant petty Father (Blessed is his Destruction), and you will crawl down inside of him and wear him like a glove, the two of you pressed so close against each other as to feel every synaptic twitch.

mindless rage and animal instinct, he surprises you even still because even as his mangled voice joins your chorus he refuses to blend inside of it, voice harmozing alongside yours, clear and distinct even as its in tune. another gift, because the myrkul woman rips him open and sews him up and you are forbidden from stopping it, and here is a new Hate, this one all your own. no matter. when it drags him back to your cradling pod, you will sing softly into him and his mangled mind will sing back, because your spawn writhes in ruined meat. more than just his Mind, you know his very Soul, your first True Soul, and he is yours yours yours and you will cherish him and heal him and guide him, loose your leash and watch him run, and when he follows the call of ruin and all three fools lie dead at his feet, you will call him back and then you will pick up the ruins of His Design and enact your Own, your hateful slaughtergod held in hands that truly appreciate the gift that is your murder spawn Kingmaker, your godflesh funnel of Faith, your Dark Urge

may His father quake in terror at your approach, may he tremble and weep at your coming, and may His every day be ruinous and red as his wretched heart desires

What if this is Gortash's way of having a plan to betray the others. Just as Durge is planning to end the world, with himself and Gortash as the last living beings, what if Gortash was planning on "liberating" Durge from their bhaalspawn flesh and blood. Durge would be a part of Enver's perfect order. Maybe both of them are hatching plans to subvert the other for their cause, tyranny and murder respectively. This is a wild rabbit hole indeed.

Let's say, Durge somehow defies daddy Bhaal and Gortash does not bite the grass.

Let's say, despite tireless efforts Bhaal doesn't rly like letting go of his kids, esp not those crafted from his own flesh and blood.

Let's also say, Gortash, the mad unethical scientist, would find 'ways' for Durge to get rid of the burden that is their Bhaalspawn body (essence may be gone but that body still Bhaals property technically).

And now, cuz I'm feeling funny, what if the Steelwatch and the whole consciousness/souls bit Gortash got going on is precisely with that in mind? After all, Gortash is a tyrant obsessed with freedom. And Durge is his equal. So of course he'd assist in their escape from their own hell, too. And if what they need is a new vessel to store their consciousness, well, Gortash and his mechanical puppets are happy to oblige.

I'm onto smth I know it (and this is definitely not just a scrapped ending that I've been reconsidering again)

Not me romancing Gale so hard in act 1 that even Shadowheart comments about how often our silly sexy wizard is not so subtle about staring longingly in Tav’s direction lmao

Knowledge is power. Sometimes literally.

Astarion: Still, if nothing else, maybe I can beat Cazador to death with it (The Necromancy of Thay).

I laughed so much at this but it also reminded me of my own experience while solving the Balduran trials, in Wyrm’s Crossing dungeons.

Still, to this day, I have no idea whether I did everything right or it was not how you are supposed to solve this (please, don’t tell me!)

But Roanael, my Tav, was already so frustrated after the previous trials that in the Camber of Insight she just… threw the books at the shadows of their authors.

…And it worked.

Roanael: *throwing the book*

Astarion: I did say beating someone with a book might be an option… I just never thought you’d take it quite so literally.

Shadowheart: 🤦‍♀️

Lae’zel: *enjoying the show*

Gale: *would disapprove if he were there but fortunately he wasn’t*

shadowcursed Halsin for my fic that hurts to write on an astronomical level yeeouch

Obsessed with the idea of Durge having some interesting physiological "quirks" due to Bhaal having absolutely no clue what he was doing when he carved them up.

A few organs in slightly wrong places

Chronic pain/illness

Parts of the slayer are apparent in their normal form (small horns, little bumps where spikes would be, a screwed up jaw, maybe a slayers tail and rough skin)

Maybe some parts of Durge just look straight up wrong.

There could be good stuff too, though, like unnatural healing, crazy slayer strength, whatever else you can imagine.

(I bet the bad stuff like chronic illness and pain would only become apparent after rejecting Bhaal, and the boons of the slayer would disappear.)

Spoilers for BG3 epilogue (datamined dialogue)

Was anybody going to tell me that if an origin Karlach goes to Avernus with a romanced Lae'zel, they end up hatching the Gith egg and carry the baby around in a PORTABLE HOLE while hunting devils or am I just supposed to find out from the datamine myself

BG3 Spoilers ahead

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Love how everytime I see that fucking symbol, whether it's a meme, or a piece of art like this, I just K N O W someone got to the Alfira scene, lol

Don't even need the context, don't need to read OP's notes, or the comments- someone's sad cause they killed that bard, huh?

Guess who's playing as The Dark Urge?

they're infodumpiiiiinnnnnng omg!!