WTF was Viconia Evil in BG3

[PapaPetro]

I busted my ass saving, romancing, and saving her black ass again in BG1, 2 and ToB+ mods.
... and they make her some generic evil bitch in BG3?

Give me a FUCKEN BREAK!
Goddamn...

 

[Roguey]

Drow are evil. She in particular was evil. They also didn't have to respect a "Viconia is redeemed" playthrough. In their canon, she wasn't.

 

[MerchantKing]

They need the shallow, poorly written nostalgia b8 to maximize sales. Just like bringing back Sarevok as a monotone boring jobber and Jaheria and Minsc as companions.

 

[PapaPetro]

Define Evil: Roguey

I retroactively cast <-

 

[PapaPetro]

And i think i've made it abundantly clear that I like Dark Elf bootay.


You always could talk down & dirty to me (and get away with it; )

 

[Fargus]

I dont think devs played the previous games to care enough bro.

Drow are evil. She in particular was evil. They also didn't have to respect a "Viconia is redeemed" playthrough. In their canon, she wasn't.

I thought WoketC were against race vilification because of stereotypes or some shit? Yeah devs probably just didnt give a shit.

 

[CHIN00K]

She felt extremely shoehorned in. Why include her at all if you're just going to make her a 0 depth bossfight with nothing to say.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Drow are evil. She in particular was evil. They also didn't have to respect a "Viconia is redeemed" playthrough. In their canon, she wasn't.

You did play the game, right?
1. In her no-redemption/no-romance ending she travels the world and fights bad guys, suggesting she's has some redemption-light anyway.
2. She never was some generic cardboard villain.

Drow are evil. She in particular was evil.

Roguey... you did play the game, RIGHT?
Her whole thing was - "I had to leave Underdark because pointless crazy evil seems a bit silly".

Roguey, I implore you, safe yourself the shame and delete your post.

 

[Old Hans]

I thought WoketC were against race vilification because of stereotypes or some shit?

its easy to understand. Dark Elf society is a matriarchy so its all sassy girl bosess

 

[Roguey]

You did play the game, right?
1. In her no-redemption/no-romance ending she travels the world and fights bad guys, suggesting she's has some redemption-light anyway.
2. She never was some generic cardboard villain.

Someone who fights evil isn't necessarily good.

Roguey... you did play the game, RIGHT?
Her whole thing was - "I had to leave Underdark because pointless crazy evil seems a bit silly".

She murdered an entire family.

 

[Orud]

2. She never was some generic cardboard villain.

Then why did I have to kill her twice in the originals?

 

[Lagole Gon]

You did play the game, right?
1. In her no-redemption/no-romance ending she travels the world and fights bad guys, suggesting she's has some redemption-light anyway.
2. She never was some generic cardboard villain.

Someone who fights evil isn't necessarily good.

Roguey... you did play the game, RIGHT?
Her whole thing was - "I had to leave Underdark because pointless crazy evil seems a bit silly".

She murdered an entire family.

Because she was raped and buried alive. That's a "reasonable evil" response to a rape and murder attempt.

You did play the games, right?

 

[Roguey]

Because she was raped and buried alive. That's a "reasonable evil" response to a rape and murder attempt.

You did play the games, right?

The rape and burial happened after BG1. This family was innocent.

BG1 was written with TSR's code of ethics strictly enforced. There was no intended subversion. Viconia was evil, the Flaming Fist were good. If you kill Viconia, you don't get any reputation loss for murder.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Because she was raped and buried alive. That's a "reasonable evil" response to a rape and murder attempt.

You did play the games, right?

The rape and burial happened after BG1. This family was innocent.

BG1 was written with TSR's code of ethics strictly enforced. There was no intended subversion. Viconia was evil, the Flaming Fist were good. If you kill Viconia, you don't get any reputation loss for murder.

Trying to see some kind of moral logic in BG reputation system is not a sign of a good argument.

Decide what's the better explanation here:
1. Viconia killed a farmer family twice. Which is kind of weird she did it precisely two times.
2. Bioware, like always, can't keep track of their own writing, timelines, etc. We have many such examples.

 

[whydoibother]

I busted my ass saving, romancing, and saving her black ass again in BG1, 2 and ToB+ mods.
... and they make her some generic evil bitch in BG3?

Give me a FUCKEN BREAK!
Goddamn...

Oh my science, did they make...
.... a drow....
.... cleric of Shar.....
.... who already was shown as evil in a previous game.....
................. to be evil again?!!??!?!

 

[Average Manatee]

BG1 was written with TSR's code of ethics strictly enforced. There was no intended subversion. Viconia was evil, the Flaming Fist were good. If you kill Viconia, you don't get any reputation loss for murder.

Reputation doesn't mean much more than people assumed she was evil and the flaming fist good. Reputation is not alignment (although it was treated as such in terms of how you got your bhaalspawn powers, for some reason).

 

[Roguey]

Decide what's the better explanation here:
1. Viconia killed a farmer family twice. Which is kind of weird she did it precisely two times.

First time it was a guy, his wife, and kids. Second time it was a guy and his two sons.

Reputation doesn't mean much more than people assumed she was evil and the flaming fist good. Reputation is not alignment (although it was treated as such in terms of how you got your bhaalspawn powers, for some reason).

Here the relevant sections of the TSR Code:

1: GOOD VERSUS EVIL

Evil shall never be portrayed in an attractive light and shall be used
only as a foe to illustrate a moral issue. All product shall focus on the
struggle of good versus injustice and evil, casting the protagonist as an
agent of right. Archetypes (heroes, villains, etc.) shall be used only to
illustrate a moral issue. Satanic symbology, rituals, and phrases shall
not appear in TSR products.


3: AGENTS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

Agents of law enforcement (constables, policemen, judges, government
officials, and respected institutions) should not be depicted in such a
way as to create disrespect for current established authorities/social
values. When such an agent is depicted as corrupt, the example must be
expressed as an exception and the culprit should ultimately be brought to
justice.

4: CRIME AND CRIMINALS

Crimes shall not be presented in such ways as to promote distrust of law
enforcement agents/agencies or to inspire others with the desire to
imitate criminals. Crime should be depicted as a sordid and unpleasant
activity. Criminals should not be presented in glamorous circumstances.
Player character thieves are constantly encouraged to act towards the
common good.

 

[Lagole Gon]

I busted my ass saving, romancing, and saving her black ass again in BG1, 2 and ToB+ mods.
... and they make her some generic evil bitch in BG3?

Give me a FUCKEN BREAK!
Goddamn...

Oh my science, did they make...
.... a drow....
.... cleric of Shar.....
.... who already was shown as evil in a previous game.....
................. to be evil again?!!??!?!

No.
They reduced a character who was not a flat villain into a flat generic villain. In a completely pointless cameo.

I can see playing BG3 without the protection of alcohol already caused some serious damage to your brain.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

damn they made that bitch ugly as fuck too.

 

[Terra]

I've not played release BG3 yet so can't really comment on how Viconia's handled, but given OP's displeasure it sounds like a classic case of company #2 inheriting the work & characters of company #1 years later and screwing it up by including a cameo for a cameo's sake. I think as far as Larian respecting the various endstates of BG2 goes, the writing was probably on the wall here, especially given their own series continuity is pretty borked and they had complete creative control over that.

In cases like this, where Larian seems to have made it a goal to shoehorn old characters in for the sake of it but doesn't want to actually put in the work to acknowledge the different states that character could be in (I think Vic could either be dead, alive as your high priestess or something or just alive as evil Vic) the whole work that is BG3 is best taken as a non-canonical entry. That's how I expect to be viewing it, at least, I won't be letting Swen & co shit all over the original work's endstates.

Modern/current audience Joe "Barrelmancer" Schmoe won't know who Vic is, the minority audience who does either won't care or will lack any ability to inspire Larian to change it, so it is what it is. As the past few years have taught us across various forms of media, we should expect various upstarts to "revive" classic media and in doing so manage to fuck up things to varying degrees (see Star Wars under Disney, a series I have no attachment to but even I can see how they've fucked it). I'd be more accepting towards revivals of series like BG3 if they just left the old cast alone and kept references to a minimum; do your own thing and don't fuck with things that honestly might be some player's favourite aspects of the original games.

 

[Immortal]

She felt extremely shoehorned in. Why include her at all if you're just going to make her a 0 depth bossfight with nothing to say.

Most of the references to the games and books felt pandering and kinda pointless and weird.

I lost count how many times they reference random nobody-gives-a-fuck drow from Menzoberranzan / RA novels.. completely hamfisted in some weird way that makes no sense.. (finding random notes from those NPC's in random places they would of never possibly been)

It really feels like the writer for this game played BG2 for an hour and read the first 30 pages of Homeland and called it a day.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Decide what's the better explanation here:
1. Viconia killed a farmer family twice. Which is kind of weird she did it precisely two times.

First time it was a guy, his wife, and kids. Second time it was a guy and his two sons.

Reputation doesn't mean much more than people assumed she was evil and the flaming fist good. Reputation is not alignment (although it was treated as such in terms of how you got your bhaalspawn powers, for some reason).

Here the relevant sections of the TSR Code:

1: GOOD VERSUS EVIL

Evil shall never be portrayed in an attractive light and shall be used
only as a foe to illustrate a moral issue. All product shall focus on the
struggle of good versus injustice and evil, casting the protagonist as an
agent of right. Archetypes (heroes, villains, etc.) shall be used only to
illustrate a moral issue. Satanic symbology, rituals, and phrases shall
not appear in TSR products.


3: AGENTS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

Agents of law enforcement (constables, policemen, judges, government
officials, and respected institutions) should not be depicted in such a
way as to create disrespect for current established authorities/social
values. When such an agent is depicted as corrupt, the example must be
expressed as an exception and the culprit should ultimately be brought to
justice.

4: CRIME AND CRIMINALS

Crimes shall not be presented in such ways as to promote distrust of law
enforcement agents/agencies or to inspire others with the desire to
imitate criminals. Crime should be depicted as a sordid and unpleasant
activity. Criminals should not be presented in glamorous circumstances.
Player character thieves are constantly encouraged to act towards the
common good.

Don't play stupid Roguey games with me, I know your techniques too well.

Copy-pasted text and a possibly retconned background in BG1 doesn't magically vanish her BG2 writing and epilogues.

Someone who fights evil isn't necessarily good.

She worked with Drizzt Do'Urden in non-romance epilogue. Take-a-fucking-hint.

 

[Tweed]

Bear Gapers can't stop losing!

 

[vota DC]

You did play the game, right?
1. In her no-redemption/no-romance ending she travels the world and fights bad guys, suggesting she's has some redemption-light anyway.
2. She never was some generic cardboard villain.

Someone who fights evil isn't necessarily good.

Roguey... you did play the game, RIGHT?
Her whole thing was - "I had to leave Underdark because pointless crazy evil seems a bit silly".

She murdered an entire family.

Because she was raped and buried alive. That's a "reasonable evil" response to a rape and murder attempt.

You did play the games, right?

There Is a good aligned drow in the first game "Help me otherwise those gnolls will surely kill me". Drows are liars.

 

[Immortal]

There Is a good aligned drow in the first game "Help me otherwise those gnolls will surely kill me". Drows are liars.

That same drow gives you a nice pair of scimitars if you ask nicely (with rocks and arrows).

Also.. they can't swim..