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animentality · 1 month

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Do you think Gortash would still love Durge even after their bad ending (you know when they betray Bhaal and choose to surrender themselves to prison at the end) and they’ve gone mad?

For example, let’s say in an alternate scenario where Gortash survives at the end of the game. All the other companions have abandoned Durge, do you think Gortash would step in and try to help them? Do anything?

I've wracked my brain at night thinking about it.

On the one hand, the part of me that looks exclusively at in game Gortash says that Gortash wouldn't love them without power and without reason.

Because the more canon aligned Gortash is more pragmatic than emotional and although I do think his feelings verged into the impractical, he still fundamentally needs balance.

He's a domineering kind of guy, he gets along with Durge because they refused to be cowed in any way by him, and he dared not pity them or treat them with anything less than the utmost respect.

He can't sweep them under his tidal wave of personality, he crashes upon their shore, and they chip away at each other, grain by grain, in a tumultuous but steady balance.

they had a tango, you know. two partners working together. sex and love stemmed from something other than practicality, but it was practicality that brought them together initially.

He loves the Dark Urge for their power and reason, and without those two things... maybe he wouldn't seek them out.

especially not after they betrayed him.

and I don't know. the more assholish Gortash would see their alliance as having reached its inevitable conclusion. the more... emotional but distant Gortash would say, goodbye, old friend.

I wish you could've escaped your master, as I escaped mine.

and he wouldn't see them again.

but canon aligned Gortash is underwritten anyway.

so I'll do Larian's job for them and say...

well.

it could go either way.

I can see Gortash abandoning them because he is literally unable to look upon his former love, completely without freewill, and not feel soul crushing, life ending despair.

I could see it being too painful to see them when he knows he can't help them and they can't be helped by anyone, and they're gone, and he has to accept that.

again.

but I can also see...

a determined Gortash.

who has nothing now, except perhaps a desire for revenge against Durge. but as they are, mad and alone and insatiable, why even bother, right?

Bhaal has tortured them more than Gortash ever could.

maybe he keeps them locked in a basement somewhere, and at first it's just to lord it over them. mock their failure, their inability to prevent themselves from becoming like this.

in the beginning, he's still bitter about his plan failing and he blames them. to him, maybe it's a cosmic justice...

he says you could've ruled the world with me at your side and Bhaal and Bane at our backs.

but you chose this instead.

but as time goes on, his heart softens and he starts wondering if they're in there somewhere.

the only person who could understand him.

whom he could understand truly.

and maybe they're down there somewhere, trying to be understood again.

so he shows them things he hopes they remember about the life they shared together for a brief but important time. maybe books they talked about. blueprints he showed them of his future inventions. their notebooks, left behind. their old clothing, left over after long nights spend fucking and arguing.

maybe he tries to find a cure. he has some medical expertise, right? from dissecting people. maybe he tries to find a solution, some way to bring them back. maybe he pours himself into studies of bhaalspawn and deeper magic, trying to find some way to bring back a person whose mind has been ravaged into nothing.

but worst case scenario ...

he has to give up on all that... and give them the death he knows they would've asked for, had they been conscious.

so.

yeah.

anon. I've thought of it.

#baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #enver gortash #dark urge #durgetash

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fritterbat · 14 days

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prev anon can’t imagine a happy ending for an illithid? Sounds like a skill issue. Your art made me so happy to see I got butterflies because it’s such a sweet concept and so well executed. Also, (I haven’t played the full game myself) but doesn’t bg3 make it a point to say how illithids are capable of being their own unique people if given the chance? Sounds like anon would rather make sweeping shallow statements on a race without thinking much deeper on that. A huge talking point of dnd nowadays is looking past the borderline racist original depictions of evil-aligned races and finding something good and fun and compelling about them. This is why we have orcs that defy their “evil dumb” archetype and vampires and drow capable of good and tieflings in so many different colours!! 😂 Im so sorry for the tangent in your inbox but free your mind anon!! kiss an illithid! You have nothing to lose but your chains!!! 🦑💞

awww thank you anon, what a sweet message!! I was nervous to post that art of my character because it was my first time showing her off and I thought people will be weirded out by it (I had meant to post some kind of character design reference sheet explaining her Deal, first, but... I got bit by a galemance fixation......) but I won't let one single rude anon spoil my fun, I was actually blown away by how many notes that art got and how enthusiastic people have been in the tags about illithid tavs!! 🥰

I agree with you that since the very beginning of D&D it's been a grand tradition that the monster manual will say that some monster race is ALWAYS evil and there will be always be the people who look at that and go "okay, but what if there were a good one of them though" lolol. While drow and orcs and so on have been thoroughly moved into the category of "just people who have a different culture" for a while at this point, it's a lot harder to justify a non-evil alignment** for an eldritch sci-fi alien that is required to consume sentient creatures to live and is biologically hardwired to dominate and mind control... but damn if Larian didn't take a look at that and do so ANYWAYS, with ~three completely different characters no less. IMO it's a big part of the themes of this game to look at a supposed "monster" and be forced to see the nuance in them. [i mean, just look at the dark urge's character arc!!! if that person can be a hero despite their innate biological bent towards evil, why can't a mind flayer?]

**ngl vennet miiiight be neutral evil, if i rly had to put her on the alignment scale i'm btwn that and true neutral, but she was Bad before the ceremorphosis lmao. sorry if i tricked anyone with how cute her & gale are but also she's essentially a 'mad scientist' character and if anything becoming a mind flayer Fixed Her. lol

Anyways since you guys seemed to like Vennet, there is more art of her (with & without Gale) coming from me at some point but in the meantime if you want to see some pics of what she actually looks like in-game here are a fewww! obviously as her original drow self and not tavflayer which always looks the same and which i didn't even do in the actual gameplay lol

#ask response #also featuring: boyfriend... squidfriend........ listen. my girlie has two hands.#and four tentacles 😊#nah her and the emperor are like. FWB for a bit i guess? gale is the end game true romance in my headcanon story #gale's kiss anims are SO CUTE... i'd like to thank Kisses Mod for my life #me rly making gifs of them just for myself to look at... living that text post ''alone in my wizard tower googling Wizards Kissing''

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words-and-threads · 4 months

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I will say that what bg3 IS (and why it's so incredibly My Shit) is a fucking master class in character exploration. They made some fucked up little guys and then set out to get the absolute most out of them. How do our little guys handle kindness? Betrayal? Tragedy? Love? While Larian obviously couldn't include every eventuality (and I'd even say there are some dialogue possibilities that I think should have been added), you can really see a lot of different facets of the main characters and even a good chunk of a lot of supporting ones and each of those facets is presented in depth and detail. The voice acting helps of course, but the consistent and believable writing makes these characters feel like people.

It takes skill to write a character who can be psychoanalyzed without their contradictions and blank spots quickly coming into sharp focus and as obsessively as I've been prying into these little guys I've found no glaring ones so far. That's insane.

This is also something that fanfic writers tend to do very well because often wanting to explore the characters further is their whole thing.

It seems to me like that focus doesn't get much respect. Fantasy should be Epics, science fiction should be philosophy or speculation on technology, video games should be adventure or horror or politics or some other big sweeping thing. Stories about feelings and interpersonal relationships are treated as lesser and genres that specialize in those stories are trashy.

BOY I WONDER IF THE FACT THAT FEELINGS AND RELATIONSHIPS ARE CONSIDERED GIRL STUFF HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT.

But anyway.

I think my point is character study makes brain go brr more please thank you.

#bg3 #character studies #girly things #fanfic #writing

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