Damn I love Korgan, one of my favorite NPCs, my main-choice for a fighter before Dorn, he's unrelentless in combat and there is never a situation in which he can't slay his way out, and his voice-acting is fantastic along with his lines and banter, he is surely true to his alignment and I would certainly like to sit down and have an ale with him, but I'm too afraid to get an axe in my belly.
Jaheira is one of the characters that has grown on me the most, I usually didn't care much for her and used her as a filler combat/support with slings and some druid spells, but damn she is awesome if you build her right, and her character is amazing, problably the most developed companion in any BG, even Imoen didn't get as much dialougue as her.
There's many companions that I have tried a several times but hasn't really grown on me, I like Valygar though, but by the time I get to him my party is already filled and every companion of mine is vital.
korgan is one of my favourite npcs in this game. i was a bit disappointed in him today, as he had a morale failure for the first time as i can remember, when fighting the shadow dragon. my mages stepped up and saved the day with some tanking/blasting so all went well
I grew very found of Mazzy, i was firts : « a female halfling fighter thinking she's a paladin» that's the combination of a fight for women's rights and against racial stereotypes. She seemed too much like an annoying feminist, racist-spotter NPC (english not my native language, i don't meen any ofense by those comments). But she is so awesome!!! I loved her so much!(i left her with short sword/bows, with short sword of the mask and the lightning bow, (which i was sure would shoot lightning bolts like the spell, not just lightning arrows). She was awfull in combat! But my party was so powerfull id didn't matter. I loved her banter with Valygar so much, all that tiny Knight big Squire thing was adorable! A must have character, she has good dex and con, i'm sure to try her again with halberds this time (halfling with halberd, even funnier!)
I have to say Xzar, first playing Baldurs Gate in 98 when i was much younger i was just absurdly confused with the random shouts in a child's voice the constant shift between calm and outwardly evil. But now i find him one of my favorite NPC's in Baldurs Gate 1, his insanity is entertaining and he references a lot of classic movies that bring a chuckle.
I love Korgan, and since I have Mazzy in my party, he's already hitting on her. She is not impressed. I never really thought about the sexual side of having a mixed party. I suppose it could be like the show Archer and other shows where all the co-workers end up banging each other.
Wow, that's about the most spectacular thread-necromancy I've yet seen - it was more than 3 years dead!!
(Erm ... @SirBundlesofJoy_1912, you do realise that thread-necromancy is generally regarded as rather a bad habit, no? At least unless you have a specific reason for doing it.)
Sorry, I didn't notice how old the thread was. I had googled "Korgan" to see if there was a thread about him, not even thinking that it might pull up and old thread.
I am not a Necromancer. I have no plans to ressurect dead threads to serve as my minions as I take over the internet.
Nothing to see here, people. Move along, move along.
Korgan seems to enjoy talking in general. He's quite clever and eloquent, and bizarrely the angrier he is the more sophisticated his speech becomes. He makes the most buddies out of all the Evil characters and more than several Good. Befriending Keldorn and Mazzy (though the latter has a bad start) is quite impressive for a Chaotic Evil alignment.
Ale, gold, lots of killing and chatting with war buddies, that's what makes a good day for Korgan.
He also hits on you if you're female in ToB and you can play along but then he'll backpedal. Hah, all talk! He's still one of my favorite characters so I'll forgive him
Sorry to disagree but as the games under discussion (and the NPC) have been around for this long it makes sense to ressurect old threads as the arguments/comments will be more plentiful/varied and they have not dated.
The only bar should surely be only those threads that discuss, at the time current events, which link in some way to the discussion?
The more views/opinions the merrier. Korgan and other NPC are eternal, what is the difference between a player from years ago discovering an NPC and doing the same today?
the fact korgan is just a mercenary, gets along with alot of the npcs, and is all talk makes the component in the tweak pack that changes him to ne make more sense.
A mercenary shouldn't automatically make him Evil to begin with. If he is amiable but ruthless when it comes to war, and loves to be paid and have little use for rules, I'd peg him as CN.
It is only when he goes out of his way to kill and torture and maim for his own amusement that you put him in the Evil category. Korgan has shades of this, but is it enough to actually put him in the Evil bracket? I don't know.
One thing I do know is that no way is Viconia NE. She just wants to be left alone. I'd put her as TN more than anything else, trying to act Evil because, hey, drow are Evil, right? At least that is the defence she keeps bringing up when you talk to her.
BG2 NPC alignments are based on the character as a whole, which is to say that they are absolute in the sense that it takes everything about the character into consideration, not just certain aspects of the character or the personality that your PC interacts with. It's one of the best things about creating your own characters - you get dibs on the general stuff (my character is "good", and that's how he'll be!). The challenge is figuring out the details (wait... but according to this story arc I just wrote he kills his father... hmmm... so he must have done it self-defense!). You have to remember that Korgan is a game NPC, not a constantly evolving character someone is playing.
Korgan's evil nature can be easily seen in how he has no qualms about betraying or flat out attacking people he considers weak (like his old party mates or Aerie). The fact that he has redeemable qualities simply tells you that he also happens to have a complex personality - he respects strength, even if it comes from good-aligned people (like Mazzy), he has a sense of humor (interactions with Jan) and he has a deep hatred for Slavers. He also happens to have a certain degree of self-awareness, as in one of his more serious conversations with Mazzy he admits that, once upon a time, he might have considered himself redeemable. Given his age/experience you have to wonder just how much evil he has actually done for him to think that he's beyond help. It's up to you to connect the dots and speculate since you really only see parts of his personality, using his alignment (Chaotic Evil) as a guide. It really doesn't need a lot of imagination to do it. Personally I like to think that, during his youth, Korgan had some bad experiences with slavers and people who refused to stand up to them (for whatever reason), possibly culminating in him snapping after he sees the suffering of the little ones. That experience is what causes him to regard slavers and people who come off as weak to be kill-able, and he's been doing just that for a very long time (he seems a bit past middle age when you meet him).
Viconia is the same. One can only speculate that although she only wants to be left alone, and may even go out of her way to help people if she sees any gain from doing so (even it's just emotional, so she feels better about herself) as Neutral Evil she'll kill an innocent if there's anything significant to be gained from doing it. There's a good chance she won't like doing it, and she may even feel bad about doing it, but unless you make her TN she will.
You got proof that she will? None of her conversations actually proves she has any inclination to do so. As I recall, the worst thing she ever said was that she can endure more than most and be ruthless when taking revenge because she is drow. Since just about any race can do this (see Kivan), it does seem to me that the lady doth protest too much.
Obviously it was the design intention that Viconia is thoroughly Evil - not only is she drow (almost always Evil, a few secretly Neutral, never Good except for the outcast Drizzt), but she was originally trained as a Priestess of Lolth (i.e. an active supporter of the thoroughly Evil goddess who is the very root of Evil dominance in drow culture). By the time we meet her, she has abandoned Lolth and become a Priestess of Shar (another Evil goddess, albeit perhaps not quite so bloodthirsty as Lolth) and therefore is still an active advocate of Evil. She is on a path which may (if you take her along, and only if your protagonist is in a successful romance with her) eventually lead her to become Neutral in ToB, but by default she remains Evil to the end.
However, it is a justifiable criticism of Bioware's writing in the original games that they didn't write Viconia like a dedicated priestess of Evil, even though that's what she's meant to be. Perhaps they were too concerned to keep signalling that she might eventually be redeemable, but if so, then they over-did it and made her talk from the start as if she had already converted to Neutral, instead of that being merely a conditional possibility for late in the series. It would have been more consistent characterisation if she'd been a little more blatantly Evil in BG1 and in (at least the early stages of) BG2:SoA ... but nevertheless, there's no room for doubt that she was always intended as Evil.
You have to remember that Viconia is a priestess of Shar, lying and manipulation is kind of a requirement for that.
As for the reason she was banished, the exact circumstance was that she paused during her attempt to sacrifice the baby - and that was really all it took for her fellow opportunistic priestesses to turn on her. Who knows what could have happened if she had more time to consider what she was going to do. Also, consider that Viconia actually was a priestess of Lolth. Becoming one requires going through trials of extreme brutality and perversity. Compared to what they have to go through, Kivan's tragic experience is meh.
She is on a path which may (if you take her along, and only if your protagonist is in a successful romance with her) eventually lead her to become Neutral in ToB, but by default she remains Evil to the end.
However, it is a justifiable criticism of Bioware's writing in the original games that they didn't write Viconia like a dedicated priestess of Evil, even though that's what she's meant to be. Perhaps they were too concerned to keep signalling that she might eventually be redeemable, but if so, then they over-did it and made her talk from the start as if she had already converted to Neutral, instead of that being merely a conditional possibility for late in the series. It would have been more consistent characterisation if she'd been a little more blatantly Evil in BG1 and in (at least the early stages of) BG2:SoA ... but nevertheless, there's no room for doubt that she was always intended as Evil.
I think redemption is a theme that Bioware was going for. You get to redeem both Viconia and Sarevok, and at least some of the other Evil companions are either out of alignment or are at least sympathetic.
Kagain, for example, is listed as Evil, but he doesn't do anything during his time with you that shows he is malevolent. Korgan, as many have pointed out, is rather affable Evil, if he is even considered Evil at all. Tiax is batshite insane and worships an insane God. It is arguable whether he is truly Evil given his insanity. The same with Xzar with the batshite insane bit. Shar-Teel isn't really Evil so much as she likes to beat up men. Misandry, while bad, is not Evil in and of itself.
If you want Evil, I'd posit that Ajantis and Kivan is far more Evil than Viconia. They want to kill someone just because she is born of the wrong race. I would think that Safana would be closer to Evil than Kagain or even Korgan, especially given what she did in BG2. Also Faldorn. Dear Lord... Faldorn. She is at the very least Neutral Evil, being malevolent in the extreme.
And of course, we have the cackling psycho Evil that is Eldoth, Montaron, Dorn and Hexxat.
It is telling that I would rather travel with the likes of Viconia, Shar-Teel, Kagain and Korgan than Ajantis and Kivan, neither of which has ever had a long-term place in any of my parties to date, and I have been playing this game for 2 decades or so. And to date, almost all of my playthroughs are in the Good spectrum, and never in the Evil paths.
You have to remember that Viconia is a priestess of Shar, lying and manipulation is kind of a requirement for that.
As for the reason she was banished, the exact circumstance was that she paused during her attempt to sacrifice the baby - and that was really all it took for her fellow opportunistic priestesses to turn on her. Who knows what could have happened if she had more time to consider what she was going to do. Also, consider that Viconia actually was a priestess of Lolth. Becoming one requires going through trials of extreme brutality and perversity. Compared to what they have to go through, Kivan's tragic experience is meh.
Well, she did try to change her story if you romance her, to rather transparently hilarious results. The thing is, there is no indication she was lying in the first place and nothing points to the fact she was. It is rather telling also that in all of the problems that involve her in the party, none of them was started by her.
I am not saying that she is not ruthless when the need arises, but the problem I am having is actually finding any evidence that Viconia is actively malevolent towards anyone in any of the BG series. Most times, it seems, she is the victim rather than the other way around.
Also, her becoming a priestess of Lolth doesn't mean anything. In Menzo, if you are female, you are a priestess of Lolth or dead. Even Liriel Baenre was a priestess of Lolth and she's Neutral Good.
well ajantis is suffering from lawful stupid. even his mentor keldorn attacks vicky for being a drow and he is more level headed. with kivan it's just a case of surface elves not liking drow.
Lawful Stupid is defined in the Book of Exalted Deeds as Evil, actually :P The authors themselves got so sick and tired of Lawful Stupid that they spent PAGES calling it out.
Tiax is batshite insane and worships an insane God. It is arguable Whether he is truly Evil given his insanity
Unfortunately we have little info on his actual life. My head canon is that you have to be evil to become a worshipper of Cyric (I personnally refrain from converting to Cyric whenever I meet a mad cleric on the street). Cyric will eventually drive you mad, but you don't stop being evil just because you went mad. But this madness will make you extremely unlikely to redeem yourself (unlike Viconia). Driving you mad is a way that an evil god can use to destroy your free will.
Bear in mind that madmen are considered Chaotic Neutral in DnD-verse.
Cyric doesn't drive you mad in the batshite insane sort of madness. You would have to be a certified sociopath to worship the guy, so you are a psychopath of some decription to begin with, but Cyric himself won't drive you crazy. Well, unless you read the Cyrinishad, but that is another story. Many of the named Cyric worshippers are pretty lucid and sane. Just profoundly lacking in the moral compass arena. Tiax is an exception.
Well, she did try to change her story if you romance her, to rather transparently hilarious results. The thing is, there is no indication she was lying in the first place and nothing points to the fact she was. It is rather telling also that in all of the problems that involve her in the party, none of them was started by her.
Then you've been deceived. Viconia's manipulations are subtle, from the way she talks to the way she like using shock factor to elicit various responses from her fellow party mates. Obviously some people snap more easily than others. Note that in some of her conversations with other NPCs they'll mention something about the way she talks/looks at them, the way she acts or even the way she moves. It rarely has anything to do with what she's actually saying.
I am not saying that she is not ruthless when the need arises, but the problem I am having is actually finding any evidence that Viconia is actively malevolent towards anyone in any of the BG series. Most times, it seems, she is the victim rather than the other way around.
That's a terrible way to gauge "evil", considering that many evil people truly believe that they're doing the right thing. Is it really so hard to imagine an evil person who simply sees no reason to act evil during her interactions with you? I suppose this part is debatable though, considering the whole "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" argument.
Also, her becoming a priestess of Lolth doesn't mean anything. In Menzo, if you are female, you are a priestess of Lolth or dead. Even Liriel Baenre was a priestess of Lolth and she's Neutral Good.
Liriel Baenre was also an extremely powerful arcane caster and received a staggering amount of special attention/consideration from her superiors. One could very easily argue that hers was a very unique case.
In contrast, the sheer amount of info we have regarding "typical" drow priestesses and their activities (from the Drizzt novels to just about any other D&D novel with drow in them) involves priestesses and priestesses-in-training committing murder, torture, being raped/having consensual sex with demons, having incestuous relationships, killing and sacrificing "lesser" humanoid beings for the glory of Lolth, etc.
All of which means nothing. If you don't have proof, you can't convict. Rule 1 of any good system of law and justice. Inferrence, someone else does it too, she must be hiding her Evil, all are stupid excuses to hate someone and certainly bonkers reason to attack that person, whether in a court of law or with a mace to the face.
Viconia is not some sort of living breathing entity that can actively "deceive" the player. Her conversations can literally be printed out word for word and examined ad nauseum. That you think she does speaks of pathos.
I would shudder to live in a world in which you are a paladin or some sort of caster who can cast Detect Evil. The death toll would be... astronomical.
The alignment system isn't really applicable to real life, because most real life people aren't only good or only evil. Trying to explain why fictional characters aren't evil or good because it wouldn't make sense logically in the real world is kind of along the same lines, imho. But it is still fun to speculate. The alignment system was really meant as a tool to help enrich role-playing, writing, and character development (and as an excuse for the PCs to slay entire villages of orcs ) When taken in that light, it can be totally understood why Viconia and Korgan are labeled as evil. Their characters role-play and are written as evil.
I will say this, though: evil people don't believe they are evil. Almost everyone believes, or at least tries to rationalize, that they did the best they could in their situation; the methods of this implementation vary between people.
Viconia uses her victimization as a justification for worshipping her an evil goddess and appreciates harming surface dwellers out of revenge against those who have hurt her. Korgan is greedy and wants what he wants and he believes that others are generally trying to screw him over...which is one way he justifies his actions as good.
Both characters believe they are good, or at least doing what makes sense or what is right by them or best for them. Which just spectacularly fantastic writing! Only writers with an understanding in real psychology could have written something that makes you question whether or not a character labeled as evil really is evil, or good really is good. Characters that fit the stereotypical fantasy mold of evil and good have no interest for me, which is why I am so attracted to most of the Baldur's Gate characters.
Comments
Jaheira is one of the characters that has grown on me the most, I usually didn't care much for her and used her as a filler combat/support with slings and some druid spells, but damn she is awesome if you build her right, and her character is amazing, problably the most developed companion in any BG, even Imoen didn't get as much dialougue as her.
There's many companions that I have tried a several times but hasn't really grown on me, I like Valygar though, but by the time I get to him my party is already filled and every companion of mine is vital.
A must have character, she has good dex and con, i'm sure to try her again with halberds this time (halfling with halberd, even funnier!)
I never really thought about the sexual side of having a mixed party. I suppose it could be like the show Archer and other shows where all the co-workers end up banging each other.
(Erm ... @SirBundlesofJoy_1912, you do realise that thread-necromancy is generally regarded as rather a bad habit, no? At least unless you have a specific reason for doing it.)
I am not a Necromancer. I have no plans to ressurect dead threads to serve as my minions as I take over the internet.
Nothing to see here, people. Move along, move along.
Ale, gold, lots of killing and chatting with war buddies, that's what makes a good day for Korgan.
He also hits on you if you're female in ToB and you can play along but then he'll backpedal. Hah, all talk! He's still one of my favorite characters so I'll forgive him
Sorry to disagree but as the games under discussion (and the NPC) have been around for this long it makes sense to ressurect old threads as the arguments/comments will be more plentiful/varied and they have not dated.
The only bar should surely be only those threads that discuss, at the time current events, which link in some way to the discussion?
The more views/opinions the merrier.
Korgan and other NPC are eternal, what is the difference between a player from years ago discovering an NPC and doing the same today?
It is only when he goes out of his way to kill and torture and maim for his own amusement that you put him in the Evil category. Korgan has shades of this, but is it enough to actually put him in the Evil bracket? I don't know.
One thing I do know is that no way is Viconia NE. She just wants to be left alone. I'd put her as TN more than anything else, trying to act Evil because, hey, drow are Evil, right? At least that is the defence she keeps bringing up when you talk to her.
It's one of the best things about creating your own characters - you get dibs on the general stuff (my character is "good", and that's how he'll be!). The challenge is figuring out the details (wait... but according to this story arc I just wrote he kills his father... hmmm... so he must have done it self-defense!).
You have to remember that Korgan is a game NPC, not a constantly evolving character someone is playing.
Korgan's evil nature can be easily seen in how he has no qualms about betraying or flat out attacking people he considers weak (like his old party mates or Aerie). The fact that he has redeemable qualities simply tells you that he also happens to have a complex personality - he respects strength, even if it comes from good-aligned people (like Mazzy), he has a sense of humor (interactions with Jan) and he has a deep hatred for Slavers.
He also happens to have a certain degree of self-awareness, as in one of his more serious conversations with Mazzy he admits that, once upon a time, he might have considered himself redeemable. Given his age/experience you have to wonder just how much evil he has actually done for him to think that he's beyond help.
It's up to you to connect the dots and speculate since you really only see parts of his personality, using his alignment (Chaotic Evil) as a guide.
It really doesn't need a lot of imagination to do it.
Personally I like to think that, during his youth, Korgan had some bad experiences with slavers and people who refused to stand up to them (for whatever reason), possibly culminating in him snapping after he sees the suffering of the little ones. That experience is what causes him to regard slavers and people who come off as weak to be kill-able, and he's been doing just that for a very long time (he seems a bit past middle age when you meet him).
Viconia is the same. One can only speculate that although she only wants to be left alone, and may even go out of her way to help people if she sees any gain from doing so (even it's just emotional, so she feels better about herself) as Neutral Evil she'll kill an innocent if there's anything significant to be gained from doing it. There's a good chance she won't like doing it, and she may even feel bad about doing it, but unless you make her TN she will.
However, it is a justifiable criticism of Bioware's writing in the original games that they didn't write Viconia like a dedicated priestess of Evil, even though that's what she's meant to be. Perhaps they were too concerned to keep signalling that she might eventually be redeemable, but if so, then they over-did it and made her talk from the start as if she had already converted to Neutral, instead of that being merely a conditional possibility for late in the series. It would have been more consistent characterisation if she'd been a little more blatantly Evil in BG1 and in (at least the early stages of) BG2:SoA ... but nevertheless, there's no room for doubt that she was always intended as Evil.
As for the reason she was banished, the exact circumstance was that she paused during her attempt to sacrifice the baby - and that was really all it took for her fellow opportunistic priestesses to turn on her. Who knows what could have happened if she had more time to consider what she was going to do.
Also, consider that Viconia actually was a priestess of Lolth. Becoming one requires going through trials of extreme brutality and perversity. Compared to what they have to go through, Kivan's tragic experience is meh.
Kagain, for example, is listed as Evil, but he doesn't do anything during his time with you that shows he is malevolent.
Korgan, as many have pointed out, is rather affable Evil, if he is even considered Evil at all.
Tiax is batshite insane and worships an insane God. It is arguable whether he is truly Evil given his insanity.
The same with Xzar with the batshite insane bit.
Shar-Teel isn't really Evil so much as she likes to beat up men. Misandry, while bad, is not Evil in and of itself.
If you want Evil, I'd posit that Ajantis and Kivan is far more Evil than Viconia. They want to kill someone just because she is born of the wrong race. I would think that Safana would be closer to Evil than Kagain or even Korgan, especially given what she did in BG2. Also Faldorn. Dear Lord... Faldorn. She is at the very least Neutral Evil, being malevolent in the extreme.
And of course, we have the cackling psycho Evil that is Eldoth, Montaron, Dorn and Hexxat.
It is telling that I would rather travel with the likes of Viconia, Shar-Teel, Kagain and Korgan than Ajantis and Kivan, neither of which has ever had a long-term place in any of my parties to date, and I have been playing this game for 2 decades or so. And to date, almost all of my playthroughs are in the Good spectrum, and never in the Evil paths.
I am not saying that she is not ruthless when the need arises, but the problem I am having is actually finding any evidence that Viconia is actively malevolent towards anyone in any of the BG series. Most times, it seems, she is the victim rather than the other way around.
Also, her becoming a priestess of Lolth doesn't mean anything. In Menzo, if you are female, you are a priestess of Lolth or dead. Even Liriel Baenre was a priestess of Lolth and she's Neutral Good.
Cyric doesn't drive you mad in the batshite insane sort of madness. You would have to be a certified sociopath to worship the guy, so you are a psychopath of some decription to begin with, but Cyric himself won't drive you crazy. Well, unless you read the Cyrinishad, but that is another story. Many of the named Cyric worshippers are pretty lucid and sane. Just profoundly lacking in the moral compass arena. Tiax is an exception.
Viconia's manipulations are subtle, from the way she talks to the way she like using shock factor to elicit various responses from her fellow party mates. Obviously some people snap more easily than others.
Note that in some of her conversations with other NPCs they'll mention something about the way she talks/looks at them, the way she acts or even the way she moves. It rarely has anything to do with what she's actually saying. That's a terrible way to gauge "evil", considering that many evil people truly believe that they're doing the right thing.
Is it really so hard to imagine an evil person who simply sees no reason to act evil during her interactions with you?
I suppose this part is debatable though, considering the whole "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" argument. Liriel Baenre was also an extremely powerful arcane caster and received a staggering amount of special attention/consideration from her superiors. One could very easily argue that hers was a very unique case.
In contrast, the sheer amount of info we have regarding "typical" drow priestesses and their activities (from the Drizzt novels to just about any other D&D novel with drow in them) involves priestesses and priestesses-in-training committing murder, torture, being raped/having consensual sex with demons, having incestuous relationships, killing and sacrificing "lesser" humanoid beings for the glory of Lolth, etc.
Viconia is not some sort of living breathing entity that can actively "deceive" the player. Her conversations can literally be printed out word for word and examined ad nauseum. That you think she does speaks of pathos.
I would shudder to live in a world in which you are a paladin or some sort of caster who can cast Detect Evil. The death toll would be... astronomical.
The alignment system was really meant as a tool to help enrich role-playing, writing, and character development (and as an excuse for the PCs to slay entire villages of orcs
When taken in that light, it can be totally understood why Viconia and Korgan are labeled as evil. Their characters role-play and are written as evil.
I will say this, though: evil people don't believe they are evil. Almost everyone believes, or at least tries to rationalize, that they did the best they could in their situation; the methods of this implementation vary between people.
Viconia uses her victimization as a justification for worshipping her an evil goddess and appreciates harming surface dwellers out of revenge against those who have hurt her.
Korgan is greedy and wants what he wants and he believes that others are generally trying to screw him over...which is one way he justifies his actions as good.
Both characters believe they are good, or at least doing what makes sense or what is right by them or best for them. Which just spectacularly fantastic writing! Only writers with an understanding in real psychology could have written something that makes you question whether or not a character labeled as evil really is evil, or good really is good. Characters that fit the stereotypical fantasy mold of evil and good have no interest for me, which is why I am so attracted to most of the Baldur's Gate characters.