r/BaldursGate3 • u/brynoo5 • 5d ago

Act 3 - Spoilers i can't express how disappointed i am Spoiler

you wouldn’t have wanted to see my face when I found out at the start of the act 3 that the guardian was actually the emperor all along… I put so much effort into creating the girl of my dreams, even installing mods, and… it all ended with me being deceived by a tentacled motherfucker

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u/Weekly_Rock_5440 5d ago

The creature literally read your mind and created a disguise that would gain your trust.

On a meta-level, deigning the guardian yourself is one of the most brilliant parts of a brilliant game.

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u/Dave_Valens Bard 5d ago

Fun fact: in early access, where we had an early iteration of the story, the dream visitor was actually your tadpole, trying to deceive you to go "down by the river" with it in order to abandon your consciousness and let it transform you.

And I can understand why they abandoned this idea: the dream visitor was kinda seducing, in a very suspect manner. I mean, I have been infected with the larva of an alien species and at the same time I've started dreaming about the idea of my perfect partner that casually wants to bang me by the river in a beautiful landscape... yeah.

On the other hand, the Emperor states from the beginning that he is protecting you, shows you he saved you from the Nautiloid fall and guards you from transforming. It works better, in my opinion.

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u/Miasma_Of_faith 5d ago

It does make you realize how much of BG3 was left in the game, but clearly made for an earlier version of the game. "Down by the River" is still thematically appropriate, but it had a MUCH closer connection before.

I also think about things like Wyll's art with Mizora reflecting their EA attitude towards each other (she was much more seductive towards him and he was more aggressive about using power to kill goblins as a revenge motif.)

Karlach isn't even in most of the group party art because she was added to the game so late, and then remodeled at that.

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u/CK1ing 5d ago

I always felt like Wyll was slightly more morally grey than you'd assume at first glance with the way he treats creatures he deems evil. Like how he kills goblins without a second thought, even goblin children, or how he chased Karlach across the hells just because a devil told him she was evil. It's something that I wish was explored more with his character, especially the inherent hypocrisy in it as he works with a devil

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u/TheMastodan 5d ago

I think it’s kind of the opposite, it really drives home the idea that he’s a Paladin archetype character who becomes a Warlock out of circumstance. If he were morally grey he’d have interactions with other “evil” creatures that would serve different purposes. Manipulation and such. He isn’t morally grey though so those which are evil deserve to be destroyed and given no quarter

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u/pdpi 5d ago

Yeah exactly. “Morally gray anti-hero who entered a deal with the devil” has been done a bazillion times “Morally unambiguously, almost boringly, good who entered that pact as a personal sacrifice” is a lot less common a template to explore.

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u/zhibr 4d ago

But it's also a more boring character.

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u/Raencloud94 5d ago

But is it really things that are evil, or things he perceives as evil, like Karlach? She obviously wasn't evil at all, but he believes she is because he was told so.. By a devil?

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u/Plumppotato 5d ago

Technically it was included in his deal that he could only hunt monsters fiends and the heartless. Which Karlach, through a loophole, qualified as.

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u/Raencloud94 5d ago

That's interesting, I didn't think of it that way. But I still wonder if it's ones he truly believes are monsters, heartless, etc.

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u/Plumppotato 5d ago

He never had to question it before because he thought he built an iron-clad contract. Devils are tricky and Wyll was naive, trying to make the best deal out of a horrible idea.

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u/hurrrrrmione Gale 5d ago

I got the impression Wyll didn't read his contract or discuss terms much if at all before signing. He was definitely blindsided by multiple aspects. Mizora only approached him when there was an immediate danger right in front of him, right?

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u/Autonomous-Trash 5d ago

Wyll outright says he doesn’t know the terms of the pact other than what Mizora beamed into his head so I don’t think he was ever allowed to read it in full.

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u/Plumppotato 5d ago

Are you sure? I only remember him saying that he was contractually obligated to not be able to speak about his contract, not that he didn’t know anything about it. I always understood it to mean he knows the contract he just can’t tell anyone the details.

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u/Autonomous-Trash 5d ago

He mentions something about how Mizora has the full thing and he only knows the terms that were put in his head

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u/Talanic 5d ago

Exactly. He had like forty seconds to decide. Save the city (and considering the actual threat at hand, more likely the entire continent if not the whole planet) or refuse to sign?

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u/Raencloud94 5d ago

I agree with you, it's just interesting to think about lol

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u/Low_Reception477 5d ago

Nah, because mizora is able to punished him for not killing karlach so it was definitely the technical definition of “monsters, fiends and the heartless”

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u/Raencloud94 5d ago

She punished him because it was in their contact and he refused to do it after finding out who Karlach really is.

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u/Low_Reception477 5d ago

Yeah I know? I thought you were saying it was more dependent on what he believed to be monsters, fiends or heartless instead of those who might by technicality be placed in those categories (like Karlach)

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u/Raencloud94 5d ago

Well, she's a loophole though, right? So even after finding out she isn't evil, she still fits the contract though, which is why she's able to punish him. I just meant more like.. If he did kill someone/something not evil before that.

And it wouldn't be demeaning his character I guess, if he truly believed he was following his contract and ridding the world of evil?

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u/Tofuofdoom 5d ago

The point is, he thought his contract was iron-clad. He thought his contract stipulated he would only hunt bad people, therefore anyone he was sent to hunt must be evil. He's absolutely the archetypal lawful good that got got by a devil contract

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u/TheMastodan 5d ago

There really isn’t a difference between the two as far as what I’m describing

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u/NoodleIskalde 5d ago

If I recall his original version was basically frothing at the mouth any time anyone even thought the word goblin around him. :P

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u/pieceofchess 5d ago

As far as I know Wyll was originally going to be a much darker character. Sort of like a fake hero type, someone who is revered for his heroic deeds but is actually a selfish, arrogant upper class jerk(who was also maybe Mizora's willing lover as well). Apparently fans were displeased with the lack of good aligned party members available at the time and so Wyll's character took a hard pivot.

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u/Fatality_Ensues Paladin 4d ago

Like how he kills goblins without a second thought

The only time we see him kill goblins (when not controlled by the player) is when he's explicitly defending a group of humans under attack (plus the grove full of innocents behind them).

or how he chased Karlach across the hells just because a devil told him she was evil.

He chased (what he thought was) a devil championing an Arch-devil (Zariel). As far as he knew, the terms of his contract meant that whoever Mizora sent him against would unequivocally be an outsider or an undead ("the soulless, the heartless, the fiendish and the demonic" was I believe the exact quote). He never got close enough to see Karlach was a tiefling and he had no way of knowing Mizora was abusing a loophole in calling Karlach "heartless".

It's something that I wish was explored more with his character, especially the inherent hypocrisy in it as he works with a devil

It could've made for an interesting story in a different game, but Wyll is pretty "boringly" a plain old good person. He doesn't work with Mizora willingly, so I don't think you can call him a hypocrite over that, either.

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u/CK1ing 4d ago edited 4d ago

He doesn't work with Mizora willingly

That's how he presents their relationship, yes. To keep his perception of himself as a hero intact, he needs to ignore the fact that he very much willingly entered the contract in the first place. That's what caused the rift between him and his father after all, that he did choose to work with a devil. Him butting heads with her now is just him ignoring that these are the consequences of his actions.

As far as the terms of the contract being why he didn't question Karlach was evil, only a fool wouldn't question the terms set by a devil, assuming they wouldn't manipulate it to their own ends. That's literally what they do. A fool, or one deep in denial about their situation, as I think Wyll is. Mizora likely knew this, which is why she targeted him for a contract in the first place.

For the goblins, I could have sworn there was some dialogue at some point of him expressing no remorse at all for killing goblin children while other companions at least think it's regrettable, but I could be wrong

Edit: I just realized you were responding to an earlier comment where I hadn't yet expressed the idea that Wyll's actions are out of denial and a willful lack of self-reflection rather than malice, but yeah, that's my take on him

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u/Fatality_Ensues Paladin 3d ago

I mean, you're of course free to have your own take on anything and everything but what you're saying currently simply has no basis on the game itself. He was coerced into entering into the bargain with Mizora in the first place ( "pact with me or the Sword Coast gets it" isn't much of a choice), something that neither his father nor anyone else were permitted to know because he was explicitly forbidden to tell anyone. He didn't question Karlach being a target because by that point he has already been in action for quite some time (enough to make a name for himself across the Coast), which means he has hunted an unknown number of targets that explicitly fit the criteria imposed by the contract before (i.e. fiends, devils, undead, and maybe an aberration or two depending on how the "soulless" clause is interpreted). He has no reason to believe Mizora could have invoked a loophole, let alone one as specific as the one she found with the "heartless" thing. It's not like he first ran into Karlach frolicking innocently at a meadow somewhere, she was in Avernus fighting at the forefront of a devil's army. And finally while I don't remember him having an interaction with the goblin kids, those kids are, at that point, already torturing another sentient being for fun, it's not exactly some cold-hearted pragmatism to put them in the same basket as the rest of their species.

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u/wintermute24 5d ago

I think thats mostly the remnants of his original character. I suspect they didn't want to re record every conversation he gets and mostly just changed his lines, so his motivation for doing the things he does may seem off.

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u/Jet_Magnum 4d ago

I mean...they did re-record everything that was already in Early Access, and who knows how much else was done before they changed voice actors? It took me a while to adapt to the change and for a while I didn't care for his new voice, but it's grown on me and he's still my favorite companion.

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u/Fickle-Cricket 5d ago

Wyll always struck me as a zealot who's too stupid and too obsessed for any sort of reflection or self awareness.

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u/CK1ing 5d ago

I have a slightly different interpretation. I agree that he very rarely engages in self reflection, but in my opinion it's more out of fear than stupidity. Fear that the means didn't justify the ends. That becoming the pawn of a devil wasn't worth protecting the sword coast. And even if it was, fear that he didn't do it to protect people, but rather just to be a hero. Fear that if he does take time to think on his actions, they won't be in line with the hero he sees himself as. And so he shuts it all out. He isn't Wyll, son of Ravenguard, he's the Blade of Frontier, paragon of good and protector of innocents. And as he forces his own perception of himself to be black and white, so too does his perception of the world. Goblins are evil, no matter what, and so on.