What's Up with Nalia? (ToB) SPOILERS
Heindrich
Member, Moderator Posts: 2,959
I only used Nalia for the D'Arnise Keep, but in that short time she spent with the party, she left me a fairly good impression. She was polite, compassionate, helpful and sweet. I particularly remember a cute banter with Yoshimo, when he kinda hits on her, and she responds quite sweetly and modestly.
Fast forward to Throne of Bhaal... I've lost Aerie, Imoen, Jaheira and Minsc to Imprisonment in Watcher's Keep. I call upon former companions, Keldorn, Valygar, Mazzy and Nalia to replace them.
Keldorn, Valygar and Mazzy are eager to help and firmly stand by Charname in a time of need. Nalia's attitude/tone however was completely different. There was a certain accusatory tone in her conversation, not to mention a massive ego she must've picked up when the party was struggling through the Underdark (and worse)!
I think her voice changed as well...
Was there a lore reason for Nalia's drastic personality change? Was there a quest I missed that would've prevented this? Was the voice-actress for Nalia changed between SoA and ToB? Or did Bioware just decide that they'd use Nalia to demonstrate the principle of 'Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely'?
Fast forward to Throne of Bhaal... I've lost Aerie, Imoen, Jaheira and Minsc to Imprisonment in Watcher's Keep. I call upon former companions, Keldorn, Valygar, Mazzy and Nalia to replace them.
Keldorn, Valygar and Mazzy are eager to help and firmly stand by Charname in a time of need. Nalia's attitude/tone however was completely different. There was a certain accusatory tone in her conversation, not to mention a massive ego she must've picked up when the party was struggling through the Underdark (and worse)!
I think her voice changed as well...
Was there a lore reason for Nalia's drastic personality change? Was there a quest I missed that would've prevented this? Was the voice-actress for Nalia changed between SoA and ToB? Or did Bioware just decide that they'd use Nalia to demonstrate the principle of 'Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely'?
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That or she fell in to drug and alcohol abuse after filming ET.
Nalia gets a definite arrogance to her in ToB. If you summon her, you'll note she changed alignment- she went from Chaotic Good to Neutral Good. That could explain some of the attitude change: alignment changes are rarely easy (look at Anomen going to LG or CN). I'm pretty sure she's using the same voice actress, but many of her lines have been changed to come across as both more arrogant and more powerful.
Part of it also seems to be that she has actually duties that she's doing. As a noble in Amn, I believe (especially considering some of her ToB dialog) she's trying for government, where she can do more good then she could sneaking out as a child. To her, you're taking her away from her Important Business, but she's obliged to follow you because of a giant Destiny Says So sign hanging on your Bhaalspawn's head. Most of the other characters, when you pull them from the pocket plane, seem to be doing nothing all that important, generally speaking. Well, Edwin's negotiating with a prostitute, but... Edwin is Edwin.
But mostly it seems to be a power thing. She has a banter with someone she used to be friendly with- I think it might be Aerie, actually- where she basically does an 'I'm a powerful archmage now, and I'm doing what I want for the good of all'. A good Sarevok will actually warn her that she's dangerously close to following his path, IIRC, and she basically dismisses him.
As a note, though, the pocket plane is the only place where she gets snotty with the Bhaalspawn in particular- probably because she doesn't change alignment if you don't summon her, but already have her in the party going from SOA to ToB.
What we need is confirmation that there is a second, more favorable dialogue tree in ToB for Charnames who fully rescued her, restored her lands, and destroyed the Roenalls.
Can anyone who's taken Nalia from all of SoA through ToB, or who can access the complete dialogue trees in Near Infinity, shed any light on this?
The thread title may need to warn about Nalia spoilers.
Actually my Charname was a Fighter/Mage, so Nalia gave him the Keep, which he governed as benevolently as possible, though I never did use Nalia again in my SoA playthrough, after clearing the keep of trolls, which was one of the very first quests I did.
Because I was playing Blind, I didn't know how many stronghold quests there were, and because of my 'realistic rest rules', I actually completed SoA before the final quests. The last time Charname went to the Keep was when Lord Roenall threatened an invasion unless he gave up the D'Arnise lands and Keep. Naturally I refused... apparently there would actually be an invasion if I slowed down the game enough?! (At the time I was near the SoA endgame, and there seemed to be more pressing matters to deal with.)
I wonder if that somehow tagged Nalia's variables as lands having been lost to the Roenalls, cos Charname wasn't around for the invasion...
Mazzy and Keldorn have banters with her where they convince her to wind down a bit, but she has no banters with just the PC (surprising, as almost everyone else does). So it's hard to tell if she's being resentful. She's clearly annoyed at being told to hang around waiting on the pocketplane...
I found this out when I recently, for the first time, went straight to Spellhold to get Imoen, and when I finally got through the whole gauntlet, and back to Athkatla, it seemed pretty clear that the game expected me to go straight to Bodhi for the Lanthorn and then straight back to Suldanessalar, which I have no intention of doing in that run - I still have dozens of quests and areas to do beforehand.
I think the game also expects you to rest constantly, both in inns and outdoors (a lot of the romance scripting is notoriously dependent upon your camping outdoors), so for people who like to do realistic rest cycles (I'm one of them), it seems like the entirety of SoA finishes weeks sooner in game time than the devs were expecting.
Thanks for clearing that up.
That's... disappointing. I really liked Nalia in SoA, it's a shame to see how she turned out, kinda like some of the girls I knew in high school.
Seriously though, I wish her change was somehow justified, and that there would be a 'nicer Nalia' in ToB if u had helped her in SoA.
Now I've managed to save Immy and co. I wish I could send Nalia back to Amn so she isn't just sulking around in my Pocket Plane! Mazzy and Keldorn are such better company.
Oh trust me I tried real hard to save them. But I was playing blind, and didn't know where to look. I assumed the cure would be somewhere near the disease, so tried to plow further and deeper into Watcher's Keep.
After many hours struggling away with the 'B Team', and losing Keldorn to Imprisonment as well, I eventually abandoned my blind principle for the first time in my entire LP to find out where/if I could find Freedom scrolls. And yes, of course I saved everyone as soon as I could.
There's actually a mod that allows you to send people home from the Pocket Plane- Homeward Bound.
http://www.baldursgatemods.com/forums/index.php?board=113.0 (It also allows you to send people home over ship at Brynnlaw, so you can get Imoen to safety or get rid of a companion who's not Yoshimo after doing the basic Brynnlaw quests.)
I like it, because we really have no idea what happens to people when... well, spoilers for you. Needless to say, though, it helps some of my worries.