What did I miss with Jaheira? And Why?
Heindrich
Member, Moderator Posts: 2,959
Having finished my first BG 2 playthrough (Vanilla, hence didn't post in BG 2 EE forum), I checked out more of Tord's Lilly Black LP that I had previously avoided for fear of spoilers. He seems to have done a fair amount of stuff related to Jaheira that I never got, and I realised that Jaheira has been kinda quiet for most of the game...
What I did get:
1) At the very beginning there was the first stages of her romance content, but I picked Aerie, so naturally that stopped after the Aerie vs Jaheira argument where Charname had to choose.
2) I remember coming across a merchant who encouraged Charname to buy Jaheira a necklace or something, and I chose not to, because I was planning to choose Aerie anyway.
3) Just out of the Underdark, in fact the first time I went to Watcher's Keep, there was a bandit ambush where one of them held a knife to Jaheira's throat, and demanded the party hand over all their gold... which was a lot at the time, so I took a gamble and refused. (Hey, as long as she didn't get chunked, I could raise her! lol) The party killed the bandits with ease, but Jaheira was pretty pissed off. @ChildofBhaal599 tells me that this was part of Jaheira's romance content... which is kinda odd, cos I had already picked Aerie, and she was the one that commented on the Phaere decision.
So I never got anything to do with the curse quest or the Harpers... which is kinda disappointing. What are the triggers for them? @ChildofBhaal599 again mentions that the Harper quest requires you to help Xzar, which if true... seems ironic... I refused to help Xzar especially because Jaheira was in my party, and I couldn't justify agreeing to help somebody she and Khalid killed in the streets of Beregost in BG 1!
At this stage I am unconcerned about spoilers, so please do let me know what I've missed regarding Jaheira.
Also, on a related note... am I right in thinking that Minsc doesn't have an associated quest like the other NPCs? That seems kinda odd actually. I mean he does kinda urge you to go to the Umar Hills, but then the quest there has nothing to do with him, and he says nothing about it once you are there.
What I did get:
1) At the very beginning there was the first stages of her romance content, but I picked Aerie, so naturally that stopped after the Aerie vs Jaheira argument where Charname had to choose.
2) I remember coming across a merchant who encouraged Charname to buy Jaheira a necklace or something, and I chose not to, because I was planning to choose Aerie anyway.
3) Just out of the Underdark, in fact the first time I went to Watcher's Keep, there was a bandit ambush where one of them held a knife to Jaheira's throat, and demanded the party hand over all their gold... which was a lot at the time, so I took a gamble and refused. (Hey, as long as she didn't get chunked, I could raise her! lol) The party killed the bandits with ease, but Jaheira was pretty pissed off. @ChildofBhaal599 tells me that this was part of Jaheira's romance content... which is kinda odd, cos I had already picked Aerie, and she was the one that commented on the Phaere decision.
So I never got anything to do with the curse quest or the Harpers... which is kinda disappointing. What are the triggers for them? @ChildofBhaal599 again mentions that the Harper quest requires you to help Xzar, which if true... seems ironic... I refused to help Xzar especially because Jaheira was in my party, and I couldn't justify agreeing to help somebody she and Khalid killed in the streets of Beregost in BG 1!
At this stage I am unconcerned about spoilers, so please do let me know what I've missed regarding Jaheira.
Also, on a related note... am I right in thinking that Minsc doesn't have an associated quest like the other NPCs? That seems kinda odd actually. I mean he does kinda urge you to go to the Umar Hills, but then the quest there has nothing to do with him, and he says nothing about it once you are there.
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I am not sure what exactly triggers the quest but I can confirm that it starts even if you turn her down at some polite point but do the Xzar quest. The ambush happened for me after I had turner her down so I assumed it was part of the harper and not the romance questline but since you didn't get harper maybe it's a standalone event. Normally I romance her, now is the first time I'm doing Aerie instead so it was never a problem for me to trigger the stuff. But in any case Jaheira's quests are famously difficult and sometimes buggy
The curse gets triggered in the inn in docks district (Baron Ployer) and I always thought it was independent of romance status as well. Haven't been there in my current non-romance run yet since I don't want to face the mages with SCS yet
Minsc: His only quest is the general Umar hills one. There is another in the Unfinished Business mod.
You have to buy that necklace to keep Jaheira running her romance-based quest chains - and there are a lot of them.
You have to sacrifice your gold to those bandits to avoid breaking Jaheira's event chains. You get the gold back once you've killed all of them.
You have to have done the Baron Ployer chain triggered by entering the tavern at the Docks.
Jaheira's quests are very complex and hard to follow, but well worth it. It is not for no reason that her "romance" is considered the most well-developed and compelling in the game, and it plays just as well as a "friendship" or purely platonic "romance".
Minsc's only personal quest is helping the boy from the Umar Hills. If he talks to that boy, and you don't go to the Umar Hills promptly, he will leave your party, which could be disastrous if you let him talk to the boy and then go to the Underdark without having spoken to the mayor of Imnesvale.
I think you actually did the Harpers' compound by simply breaking in there, if I recall from your videos. You can go in there and do the "dungeon" regardless of roleplaying or romances. You just didn't get to see that Montaron had been polymorphed, and the subsequent dialogues and events regarding Jaheira and Xzar.
I also thought it was interesting that Jin chose to break into the "Secret Compound" in the Temple District, after being expressly told to go away by the rightful property owners. For a "lawful neutral" character, your Jin doesn't seem to have much compunction about breaking and entering if it suits him.
The only difference in your raid of the Harpers' headquarters between what you got and what might have been, would be that you would get some dialogues from Jaheira in that Harpers' compound if you had her scripts in the right place, and a couple more events that might have led to a more satisfying conclusion of your decision to raid the place, as well as having seen the end of the story of Monty and Xzar.
as far as I am aware with the bandit plot it is supposed to be with the romance. like I accidentally misclicked a dialogue and ended her romance and then the game ignored the bandits and just started the harper hold thing. in a romance the bandits come and right after (or after you do the other necessary quests) the harper hold begins. i had assumed it was part of the romance though because it just skipped that after my misclick and that happened before I reloaded. it is supposed to be a moment where you make a sacrifice and stand up for her safety and make you like a hero.
you are correct that Minsc has no quest. unfinished business adds in a quest where he loses Boo that didn't make it into the final game.
what you missed with the harper hold was quite a few items, including a ring of wizardry and the harper pin, a good amulet that only jaheira or UAI characters can wear. the quest is very long and likely to stretch through the entire game though. it is also quite buggy and I needed to console the last encounter to happen in my current playthrough to get the pin. you also get 100,000 experience to only the main character at the end.
Ah! U changed ur name AND picture! I didn't recognise you for a moment! lol
And unless I'm having a total mind blank... I'm pretty sure I never even set foot into the Harper place. I certainly never got a Ring of Wizardry... I wudda remembered and used something so good! lol
This is when I first met Xzar...
And I certainly never met Montaron in BG 2.
As for the Guarded Compound. I was looking for Cult of the Unseeing Eye at the time. And with a name like 'Guarded Compound', I/Jin was pretty curious to discover what they were guarding. And there was a sightless priest right outside the door, which was also a sewer entrance, so I don't think Jin's suspicions were entirely unfounded. I also don't think I actually looted anything during my initial investigation...
at least that's how I roleplayed such situations later on in the game, when I had customs and traditions established. For example I didn't steal/loot anything the first time I time I went to Kiser Jhaeri's home, because Jin wasn't sure of his guilt/innocence. I took everything useful after the battle though, when it became clear that he was the villain in the whole drama.
Anyway during the investigation the company were attacked by clearly evil creatures (first sighting of Glabrezu I think)... so naturally, Jin knew that whoever was the owner of the compound, was clearly up to no good, and quite willing to unleash demons to protect their secrets.
Now you can make a case that pressing upstairs was reckless, but I imagined that Imoen could have sneaked up alone and counted 6 humanoids, and Jin made the calculation that he and the company could handle them if it came to a confrontation, and he certainly wanted to ask some questions. Of course the group upstairs attacked on sight and I had to reload twice.
After searching through the compound, they were surprised/disappointed to discover no link to the Unseeing Eye. I've read later that it was supposed to be related to the slavers in the Copper Coronet, so it's not difficult to imagine that the party discovered documents implicating the owners of the compound to have been involved in slavery, trafficking and probably worse. Jin and company hands over the compound to Amnish authorities, but decide to keep the items of power they found on the bodies of the vanquished, most notably Celestial Fury.
I would really, really recommend the Jaheria romance (biased as heck as I am...) just for how much you get. The stuff with the Harpers, the romance, probably why I like her so much as compared to a lot of others she's just so involved in the story. If you do the Harper stuff and her romance she gets pretty chatty indeed.
Plus its sort of hilarious how the bossy woman's way of thanking you is to scald you. I'm curious - Lilly Black was erm..."female inclined" shall I say it. Did Tord find a way for a female character to romance her? That would be amazing ^^
Yeah, just watched his Nalia stuff... didn't realised she had so much content beyond just the Keep.
I find it hard to accept a Jaheira romance due to the age/experience gap. And due to Gorion's role in the story, I can't even conveniently forget Charname's age, which is pretty explicitly stated. Tord never romanced Jaheira.
He roleplayed that Lilly had a thing for Imoen, which was not reciprocated. He also explained that he didn't think Imoen was inappropriate because godly relations are not a genetic relationship, and gods have very different rules anyway. (He gave the example of Greek Gods, and some Indian ones I think, for whom 'Incest' is the norm.)
In any case, Lilly wasn't as ... direct... as Dorn when it came to romance, so she never pressed the issue with Imoen. And Lilly's loneliness was part of Tord's justification for her choice at the end of ToB, just as I used Aerie's influence to justify Jin's decision.
I liked the subtlety of Lilly's evil (as roleplayed by Tord), which was almost tragic and sympathetic, despite the many despicable things she's done... You always get the feeling that she was a victim of circumstance somehow, and that there was some goodness in her, and might have turned out differently if her life didn't take such a dark turn.
My name is the same - I requested to have the capitals added in order to facilitate spelling and tagging. The name is "Belgarath", plus my initials, "MTH".
My profile pics change according to my current gaming disposition and mood. I'm into playing half-orc shamans at the moment - realized in game as fighter-clerics. All my pics resemble me in brow, eyes, and characteristic upturned nose, and at various ages and weights, although, I'm still looking for the perfect pic that combines the nose, brow, eyes, and mouth with the right jaw and chin.
I think I was ok with the Jaheria romance as my characters are usually full elves (Sorceress this time, before...oh I can't remember what he was. Think it was more than likely a mage of some variant and he romanced Jaheria) I don't see the age as an issue. Elves age slowly, and as we've seen with Aerie an elf can be very old (I think she is if I remember rightly) and yet naive. So I had my guy as sort of young, yet very jaded and cold towards people. So when given the choice of Jaheria and Aerie (full elf, so no Viconia who I probably would have gone for,), he suited Jaheria more.
Well, it's not all about the romance anyway. Jaheria is just a very fleshed out, detailed and flawed character which makes her realistic and interesting, from a RP/ writer standpoint anyway. Somewhat like Anomen even if with my sorceress I was sort of despairing a lot with him, as like the (male) character I had she's not one for complainers. His initial response to Aerie was literally "ok, I've had everyone I've ever loved murdered or taken from me, torturered, and I'm the kid of an evil god. Shut up about your darned wings!". Not too nice an attitude I know, but then its what RPing a character is for
And yeah, in Lilly Black's case I've only really watched Tord when he did his Neverwinter Nights run, but he pretty much gave enough backstory of the character to clue me in. And I remember her having a complete crush on Sharwyn (guess she loved redhead arcane types with bows, lol). Likewise as you've said, the NWN follows the same character he used as a wild mage in BG, where she loses her magic and ends up with nothing which was pretty cool. He characterised Lilly so well and his NWN playthrough's given me a lot of inspiration.
Eh and...sorry for the OT wall of text. I shall bow out now lol
Even though Aerie isn't my favorite romance in fact, the fact you've been imprisoned and tortured would make many more sympathetic to her, since she has as well, and unlike you actually remembers it happening. There are numerous parallels between her and the bhaalspawn as well, both coming from isolated communities and being thrust into the world... plus I've little patience for people saying Aerie should stop constantly going on about her wings, since she would only be doing that if you encouraged her. Really, it wasn't long ago the bhaalspawn and Imoen were just as naive as her. She makes a lot of sense as a romance I suppose, even though I prefer her as a little sister type (and I find some of the ToB stuff rather silly).
You do get more from the other romances though, in terms of XP and content. Aerie's is all dialogue, and even then it's the shortest amount of dialogue. Which I find a shame, since there are many interesting sides to her that could be explored more. Her determination to become stronger, sympathy for people being abused, hatred of slavers, bits and pieces from her past, the fact that she's an adopted gnome opens up possibilities for more quirkiness and humor as well.
I think Belgar gave all the reasons, this thing of having both romances active might happened because you choosed different dialog options in Jaheira's so the Global didn't trigger (this happens in old buggy vanilla).
honestly, the age bit doesn't really bug me either after reading lots of conversations on the topic. according to events in her life she isn't really that old at all. if we consider age in human terms then Aerie and Viconia are much much older. if you look at it from their races lifespan then Jaheira would be similar to a young adult human around 20.
the Khalid part you then need to remember that people must move on to be happy. i recently watched a video from the finebros on youtube in their elders react series where a guy lost his wife to cancer but in her will she asked a radio station to leave a gift for him after he moved on. the message showed that the dead wife wanted him to find another and wanted them both to be happy and the station granted them her final gifts to the family. i thought it was really sweet and actually made me think of the Jaheira conversations and how people think it is wrong for her to move on from Khalid. honestly an adventurer needs a mindset of being ready to move in when they are constantly in danger.
i just tend to like this for having the most content. @coutelier is right on Aerie being almost all dialogue, and Viconia doesn't interest me as I am pushed around for no good reason, unlike Jah who needs time to get over Khalid and has a lot going on. i would always rather have things happen then just talking or a scene, which is one thing I felt was right with ME3 in thaat the first two games just gave you a scene before the final mission like "here is you reward!", while the third game you pretty much had them established and scenes were totally changed for those you were with.
Don't worry, I'm not bothered about thread 'derailment'... I mean it'd be a bit weird if you randomly started telling me about the different species of poisonous animals in the Australian Outback...
But everything you said led on from exisiting discussions, and I am interested in the topic anyway.
Tord's NWN LPs are amazing... unrivalled by any other LP'er I've come across, though I have only watched one of the shorter DLCs to completion cos I don't wanna spoiler the core game, which I bought, but haven't played.
Actually his first ever LP was BG 1 Vanilla, and he also did BG 2 Vanilla. He played both those games mostly blind, so he didn't roleplay so much (as I discovered, it's very hard to roleplay whilst learning a game at the same time, and you can't really plan a grand plot or narrative, cos u don't know what's coming.) What he did do was stay faithful to Lilly's character in his choices, even when they were clearly disadvantageous. For example he refused to have any mage in the party learn spells to the same level as Lilly (I think he relaxed that rule in ToB, cos I recall Imoen using Timestop), and refused to share boots... Lilly had a thing for boots... lol
To be honest, I find the concept a bit odd and don't think about the numbers. The reason why I feel that Jaheira is a bit inappropriate is that she comes across pretty mature, whereas Charname isn't, given his sheltered upbringing in Candlekeep, and being barely out of his teens. I don't even consider Viconia cos she's evil.
The elf maturity issue is kinda weird too. It makes no sense to me how elves take so long to become emotionally/mentally mature. They are clearly intelligent, and thus figure out the world just as fast, if not faster, than humans. It seems like an arbitary thing to better make sense of a much longer elven lifespan in human terms.
It's never clear what maturity really means for elves, and as I recall Drizzt was already full grown and a drow fighter by the time he was twenty.
I just found a very informative post by @Archaos from another thread where a parallel discussion developed on the same topic lol.
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Elves do not mature until way later, though there sen to be debates on whether this is physical maturity or simply 'emotional maturity', neither of which makes a whole lot of sense. (At best you'd end up playing an elf with the body of a young man/woman and the mentality of a six-year-old, or something similar.)
Some info I found from Races of the Wild (3.5E book) about that topic. Not sure about ADnD, though.
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I guess that it's possible that Wizards (the company) retconned the lore and were never consistent, so if I'd prefer to imagine Aerie being about the same age as Charname, I think that more or less works RP-wise. I don't recall Aerie ever mentioning her age in conversations.
anyway about Jaheira's age: http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50021
the troubles in Tethyr happened when Jaheira was extremely young, and her family died at this time and she was raised by druids. the troubles occured 20-25 years before the BG sage, so I would place her at 25-35 years old. if we look at the aspect that they start low level then she is likely somewhere under 30, though even at level 1 she has a small amount of exp to show she has done a bit of adventuring before you met.
is there a set period of time between BG1 and Shadows of Amn? Is there a set period of time for how long charname was trapped in Irenicus's torture dungeon? I don't seem to remember
Is it possible that the Bhaalspawn stayed in Baldur's Gate for a couple of years before getting captured?
Jaheira would have to be a bit older than that though, since she had traveled with Gorion before he retired to Candlekeep to raise you. Whichever way you look at it, Viconia has to be over 100 and also starts low level, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.
Oh damnit... yeah I remember that line now. Man I wish she never said it. lol
I guess I'll just have to accept that she's about twice the age of Charname, but still very young by elven terms, and kinda sheltered (though in much worse way than Charname) and immature due to all those years in captivity.
@booinyoureyes
I don't remember for sure... I remember that Tord referred to a very specific timeline and a few months gap between BG 1 and BG 2. I don't know if he based it off anything official though.
Yeah that's another reason that I like to think of her as young as possible. Otherwise, many decades in captivity is just depressing... Although actually... I wasn't entirely clear. Obviously Quayle saved her life, but was she still a captive when Kalah took over the circus? If she was freed, it seems odd why she'd stay working at the place where she suffered so much, so I assumed that although Quayle saved her life and gave her improved conditions, she wasn't free to come and go at will.
Given what Aerie has been through, it's entirely plausible for her to become embittered and cruel, and vow vengeance against humans for her mistreatment. The fact that she retains her innocence and altruism is the main reason why I love her as a character, in addition to the development she demonstrates later on in the game.