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”.
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.
I have a soft spot for Lae’zel. I had it before I started learning more about her. Idk, I think early on I was just like this person is literally an interdimensional space pirate who has a culture literally alien to me. It made me more accepting of her.
Forgiving of what? Her dommy mommy sex scenes?
Her adversarial nature? My dudes, she is actually quite tame for a gith and if you play deeper into her story line, you’ll discover that and also get her to stop being a bitch to everyone she’s first meeting. Can’t blame her for being an asshole when she takes orders and worships an evil lich (whom she doesn’t even know is an evil lich) that raised her and others of her kind to be unquestioning killing machines.
Forgiving of what? Her dommy mommy sex scenes?
Not if you’re my little boss halfling. She’s a fighter with points in intimidation. Lae’zel tried the dom thing on me, and I said “That’s not how thing is going to work, you’re going to submit to me”.
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.
More Amazons in our media, please.
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!
One of the keys to writing a compelling arc is to start somewhere you can juxtapose against with where you end up.
Both of your characterizations of the characters may not remain the same as you play though.
Of course, the cool thing about what Larian did is that whether they do or don’t depends a lot on player interactions and choice.
You may have a very shallow Lae’zel by the end of her arc in your game depending on both certain choices and the roll of the dice.
Honestly, I’ve been putting off the creche because I haven’t wanted to deal with her. So knowing she at least has some sort of development beyond that gives me hope
Me in a long rest, the section of the game I’m instructed to shoot the shit with the other characters to learn about their motivations:
Hey lazel, what do you think about our situation?
Her:
Hold your tongue idiot, you’d do well to act more and speak less.
Me: alright well fuck me I guess. Enjoy sitting in camp from now on, you’re benched.
Mostly kept away from news about BG3 story because I’m playing it and don’t want to be spoiled. Had no idea that there might be “backlash” against Lae’zel. Though I’m not going to read much stock in an article that’s just a bunch of tweets compiled together.
Had plenty of RPG characters not to be to my taste in other games, but my complaints usually only come in if there’s too many of them within a single game. I kinda want to know there’s a range of characters to explore with, shows breadth. Certainly if it were a full palette of whiny brats then I’d probably bounce off the game.
My only complaint so far (and I know there’s been posts in this area) is just how fucking horny people seem to be. I’m trying to buddy up with party members and they’re taking it as me coming on to them. I feel like I’m walking on egg shells when picking some responses in fear it’ll get me shoved into the sex pen with them. I’m also surprised at how fast relationships develop. I’m still in act one and have had 3 or 4 people in my camp express their wishes to bed me. Dudes, we’ve just met and yer boi has a fucked up STD like wriggler in my eye.
The backlash to her seems to mostly be on Twitter, oddly enough. Folks in the Twitter thread were pointing out how it’s just on Twitter and that she’s a favorite on Reddit.
So, another one of those “author mistakes twitter for real life” articles?
Nah, assholes are assholes, her personality is just so confrontational that I don’t want to deal with it. I don’t think gender has anything do with not wanting every conversation to be a small fight full of insults.
It’s true. If anything, people are more tolerant of women being this way. Where a man would get a fist in the face, a woman will get polite or even good treatment, especially if she’s pretty.
Take your thinly veiled Jordan Peterson type misogynistic woe is man takes elsewhere. People aren’t more accepting of aggressive women and more than aggressive men, all are off putting.
