The co-creator of the Dragon Age franchise has commented on the reaction to one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s main female characters, saying fans “always treated male characters with more forgiveness”.
Lmao, I meant to play a good character and mostly I'm succeeding. I still usually do the good thing, if not so much the...altruistic nonpayment thing. But I've gotten a lot of amusement out of the realization he is making me worse.
It's just so fun to listen to his snark that I have trouble turning down an option I know he has an opinion on. The writers, animators, and voice actors all did an incredible job on this game and his actual backstory beyond what I had expected to be lame twilight fanservice is SO much fun for someone as overanalytical as I am to take apart. I find guessing at his psyche as interesting as it is realistic.
However, functionally, Astarion is the demon on my left shoulder. And he is ruining me.
This encounter was contrasted with the player’s first encounter with Morrigan, the much-loved Dragon Age character. “It does everything right to make you like the character, before showing you her darker side,” Clark said of Morrigan’s introduction in Dragon Age: Origins. “I don’t think they did this with Lae’zel.” Gaider dismissed this suggestion, saying “it truly does not matter”.
That’s the best part. Why would you like a character male or female that is openly hostile to you? You wouldn’t. That’s the point. She isn’t your friend (at least towards the beginning), you simply share a common goal with this githyanki. I wouldn’t be more forgiving if she was a guy. She’s still being an asshole to me. But it works especially for evil playthroughs as the relationship works totally fine as something that’s just transactional in nature.
You know who I couldn’t forgive? Alistair. All he needed to do was shut his damn jackass mouth for 10min. Really hard for me not to see him in Gale everytime I talk to him.
Lae’zel was my favorite origin character and who I ended up romancing and sticking with through my playthrough.
I wouldn’t have expected that going into it, but I found her writing to be probably the most complex and interesting arc out of everyone.
Whereas Shadowheart, who I went into it thinking would be the one I’d want to romance, was insufferable by halfway though and I was regularly wishing she had less relevance to the core plot.
I’m glad Lae’zel wasn’t male, and honestly I find the suggestion annoying given that the entire plot around the Githyanki is extremely focused on the matriarchal nature of the society.
Shadowheart and Lae'zel both annoy me and I really use neither if I can help doing so. Granted, I'm still getting to the side quests in Act 1 before moving on, so grain of salt, but they both currently occupy one end of an uninteresting extreme imo — Shadowheart the shrinking little flower that needs saving, Lae'zel the shallow, judgy barbarian I'm shocked to hear would have an arc.
I dislike her because she's unendingly rude and violent for no reason, even when the occasion would go over better if she chose to cool it. If she were male, I'd still hate her him because it's every time he opens his mouth. Nobody likes a dick bag.
As noted in the article, Astarion IS pompous and mean, but the important part is he's snarky instead of outright abusive, is rarely outwardly violent, and does what he does in a way that's funny. I keep him on my team purely to hear him backtalk Wyll and reminisce about hedonism and do not get the sense at any point that he would hit me over the head with a club and drag me into a cave.
If he acted all rough and edgy and broody instead of intentionally looking for amusement via horrifying randos just to see what they do, I'd consider him the world's most boring fanservice.
Anyway, the actual shining gem is Karlach and I'm increasingly in disbelief that I've seen no one singing her praises. I usually do find female characters underwhelmingly written and moments like Karlach are very needed reminders that I'm not some weird misogynist, I just hate bad writing and it's everywhere. I fell INSTANTLY in love with that energy and remain so.
Ultimately, I may not like the one, but I am glad we're able to do Warrior Female now and go all the way with actually making them warriors. More Amazonians in media!
I get why she wasn’t super popular during EA, she’s kinda a dick early game. Once you get to the Creche though her story is badass and it changes her outlook a ton.
She’s up with Karlach as one of the best companions in the game.
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