So, I just killed Kivan to save Viconia
SharGuidesMyHand
Member Posts: 2,584
First, let me explain that I've always felt that BG1 Viconia was a rather sympathetic character (I emphasize BG1 vs. BG2 Viconia, because I find BG2 Viccy to be a nasty b*tch). To me, she's someone who is unfairly maligned and persecuted because of the color of her skin and perceptions about her race. I know that many people will argue that my perception of this issue is misplaced, because I'm applying modern-day sensibilities to a fantasy game that was never intended to be perceived in that way, but I've always taken the opposite view that the BGs are actually very effective allegories for the modern world.
Anyway, from the moment that I first encounter Viconia, I always feel a sense of responsibility for her, much like when I first save Neera or Aerie. I view her as being persecuted by a rogue officer, who insists that she is a murderer but offers up no other "proof" than the color of her skin, and intends to kill her without allowing her the opportunity for a fair trial. Personally, I've always felt that a good-aligned character is the one that should feel compelled to save Viconia, whereas an evil-aligned one would just be indifferent.
Anyway, getting back to the topic, my party had just rescued Viconia in Peldvale, then teamed up with Raiken to infiltrate the bandit camp. I outlined what happened next in my other thread here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/34935/um-i-just-killed-tazok-in-the-bandit-camp
As usual, Tazok insisted that my party prove itself in a contest of wills before he would welcome them into the camp. However, in this case, it seems that Tazok simply refused to accept that my scantily clad female barbarian could ever best him in combat, and he ended up fighting to the death because of his stubborn refusal to admit that he was wrong. Fittingly, Kivan delivered the final, fatal blow, thereby avenging the death of his loved one.
Apparently, now that his obsessive quest for vengeance was now over, Kivan decided that he needed a new target for his inner rage, and he turned his attention toward Viconia. Even after Viconia had served us so dutifully thus far, even healing his fellow party members during prior battles, he began to openly question her loyalty to the group.
Although Viconia tried to assure Kivan that she no longer worshiped Lolth, Kivan persisted in trying to antagonize her. Eventually, after Viconia warned Kivan not to continue harassing her, he took it upon himself to attack her.
My party acted quickly to try to save Viconia - too quickly, in retrospect. My barbarian sharpshooter dealt him heavy damage with an arrow, Tiax "commanded" him to sleep (which is rather surprising, since elves are supposed to have high resistance to sleep spells), Dorn absorbed his health, and Imoen (dualed to a mage) dealt the coup de grace with an ice wand zap. As a result of that last blow, Kivan was chunked into pieces. In fact, the blow was apparently so deadly, that it cause him to die twice!
Afterward, Viconia expressed her gratitude for the kindness and understanding that my party has shown her.
Unfortunately, the fact that I've just chunked Kivan means that I've now lost my party's rearguard and backup archer. I also lost all the items, magical and otherwise, that he was carrying at the time - which included the archery gauntlets, which my party leader had only just passed to him after picking up Tazok's gauntlets.
Oh well! I suppose this is what I get for being a minimal-reload RPer!
Anyway, from the moment that I first encounter Viconia, I always feel a sense of responsibility for her, much like when I first save Neera or Aerie. I view her as being persecuted by a rogue officer, who insists that she is a murderer but offers up no other "proof" than the color of her skin, and intends to kill her without allowing her the opportunity for a fair trial. Personally, I've always felt that a good-aligned character is the one that should feel compelled to save Viconia, whereas an evil-aligned one would just be indifferent.
Anyway, getting back to the topic, my party had just rescued Viconia in Peldvale, then teamed up with Raiken to infiltrate the bandit camp. I outlined what happened next in my other thread here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/34935/um-i-just-killed-tazok-in-the-bandit-camp
As usual, Tazok insisted that my party prove itself in a contest of wills before he would welcome them into the camp. However, in this case, it seems that Tazok simply refused to accept that my scantily clad female barbarian could ever best him in combat, and he ended up fighting to the death because of his stubborn refusal to admit that he was wrong. Fittingly, Kivan delivered the final, fatal blow, thereby avenging the death of his loved one.
Apparently, now that his obsessive quest for vengeance was now over, Kivan decided that he needed a new target for his inner rage, and he turned his attention toward Viconia. Even after Viconia had served us so dutifully thus far, even healing his fellow party members during prior battles, he began to openly question her loyalty to the group.
Although Viconia tried to assure Kivan that she no longer worshiped Lolth, Kivan persisted in trying to antagonize her. Eventually, after Viconia warned Kivan not to continue harassing her, he took it upon himself to attack her.
My party acted quickly to try to save Viconia - too quickly, in retrospect. My barbarian sharpshooter dealt him heavy damage with an arrow, Tiax "commanded" him to sleep (which is rather surprising, since elves are supposed to have high resistance to sleep spells), Dorn absorbed his health, and Imoen (dualed to a mage) dealt the coup de grace with an ice wand zap. As a result of that last blow, Kivan was chunked into pieces. In fact, the blow was apparently so deadly, that it cause him to die twice!
Afterward, Viconia expressed her gratitude for the kindness and understanding that my party has shown her.
Unfortunately, the fact that I've just chunked Kivan means that I've now lost my party's rearguard and backup archer. I also lost all the items, magical and otherwise, that he was carrying at the time - which included the archery gauntlets, which my party leader had only just passed to him after picking up Tazok's gauntlets.
Oh well! I suppose this is what I get for being a minimal-reload RPer!
Post edited by SharGuidesMyHand on
21
Comments
Kivan was only speaking the truth and proved his point perfectly.
I've only seen the fight break out between Xzar and Montaron versus Khalid and Jaheira from among all the NPC scripted fights. It happened twice. The first time I was helpless to intervene and I think J&K prevailed. The second time I was able to stop the battle and then they returned to normal. That was probably due to a tweakpack or some mod, I would imagine.
You say it like they're bad things. The funny thing is, Kivan is more suited to being a Shar worshipper. Among her followers are the "bitter" and those who've suffered loss.
Viconia is a neutral evil worshipper of Shar and "former" worshipper of Lloth. This means nobody should believe a thing she says...
Don't you play with BG1NPC? Maybe this encounter is a part of the mod? It might explain why others never came across it. I don't know, I've never had Vic in my BG 1 parties.
... And the reason is that I roleplay Lawful/Good characters, and in BG 1, I feel that the situation should compel most good aligned characters, and certainly lawful inclined ones, to side with the Flaming Fist against Viconia.
I know you feel that Viconia's story is an allegory for the real world, but as you pointed out yourself, I don't think it's a fair comparison because morality is much more nuanced in the real world, whereas the Forgotten Realms does feature intrinsically and objectively evil characters, deities and races.
I think even a "liberal" man in Faerun would be somewhat prejudiced against Drow because pretty much any Drow he encounters would likely try to kill or enslave him. Perhaps he might try to persuade the Flaming Fist soldier to arrest Viconia to face justice rather than kill her outright, but once the two begin to fight, Good characters should help, or at least not hinder, the Flaming Fist soldier.
Consider this... if instead of a "damsel in distress" kinda scenario with Viconia, she was a Beholder or Mindflayer who claims to have deserted from its community and only seek to live in peace on the surface, but is being pursued by monster-hunting Flaming Fists, would you really trust a Beholder/Mind Flayer's words over the (legitimate) authorities? If the answer is no, why is Viconia any different, given her race is also generally also evil.
I agree that Viconia is an evil biatch and I would totally take Kivan's side, considering she is a neutral evil worshiper of a horrendous goddess
but I'm not sure I agree with this When you ask the Flaming Fist mercenary what he intends to do with her, he says kill her. No arrest. No trial. Nothing.
He's not the same as a police officer (hell, he's a mercenary). He's more gestapo than anything, so I don't see why a good character would be okay with a Flaming Fist mercenary (all by himself, without any superior officer, mind you) executing a woman on the spot in the middle of a forest. Keep in mind he is also very, very quick to attack you and try to kill you for simply questioning his actions.
Viconia: "Greetings, darthiir, I know you look upon me as an enemy, but perhaps we could ignore our differences."
Kivan: "Stay away from me, dark elf."
Viconia: "Ilbith! If that's what you want, then so be it."
Kivan: "Don't make me warn you again, drow. Your next slip will be your last."
Ironically it is the good aligned character who threatens the evil aligned character first. I know how drow are, but my point is hatred is an unhealthy emotion, and Kivan is full of it.
I've been writing a Baldur's Gate fan fiction series based on my playthrough of BG:EE and BG2:EE (I finished the BG:EE fan fiction, I'm currently working on Shadows of Amn), and when my Charname met Viconia with Kivan, Minsc, Dynaheir, Khalid, Jaheira, Neera, Imoen, Dorn, Rasaad and Xan, he stopped Kivan from attacking her and got into a heated argument against him, and after Kivan said if my Charname knew how many times drow come to the surface to slaughter elves, he wouldn't be defending Viconia, this is what my Charname said to him in reply:
"Contrary to popular belief, I can imagine. But we don't give one drow enough opportunity to change. Like Drizzt for example. Drizzt has already proven himself to be a good natured drow, but there are people out there, human and elf alike who hate the drow so much, they would judge Drizzt before they get to know him. What would you do, Kivan? If Drizzt was standing here instead of Viconia, would you judge him by his skin, or by his character?"
I mostly agree with what you say, and I'm all for "gray" characters, but I don't see Viconia as gray at all... I think she just plays everyone for fools, either that or she has a split personality disorder. One minute she's playing the damsel, being well mannered and grateful, and the next she's calling you things like "pathetic"... "weakling"... "surface scum".
Neutral Evil:
http://easydamus.com/neutralevil.html
"The personal code of a neutral evil character may look like this:
1. You shall lie to advance yourself.
2. You shall harm the innocent to advance yourself.
3. You shall kill to advance yourself.
4. You shall not aid the weak.
5. You shall honor those who are stronger.
6. You shall follow the law only to advance yourself.
7. You shall betray friends, family, community, and nation to advance yourself.
8. You shall not aid those who protect the weak.
9. You shall not show mercy to enemies.
10. You shall seek unlimited power over others."
Sound like someone we know?
And Drizzt isn't much better, he threatens to kill you if you don't help him against the gnolls...
Rasaad: "I know you worship Shar, Viconia, and you think we have little to discuss..."
Viconia: "There is nothing I wish to discuss with you."
Rasaad: "...But the precepts of incandescence are clear. It is my duty to recognize the light in others, not just the darkness."
Viconia: "I don't want to hear about your precious Sun Soul philosophy, monk."
Rasaad: "There is light in you, Viconia. I know there is."
Viconia: "Keep talking and I'll paint this place red with your inner light."
Rasaad: "I shall leave you for now."
I never refused to help Drizzt with the gnolls, so I don't know if you're being honest or lying about what he says if you refuse to help him. Personally I think you are in denial about his personality, threatening the player simply because you refuse to help sounds completely out of character for him.
Also, Shar's dogma: "Consorting with the faithful of good deities is a sin except in business dealings or to corrupt them from their beliefs."
She's literally the goddess of darkness and secrets. Her entire portfolio IS getting people to trust her in order to betray them. Viconia is blatantly worshiping an evil deity. Sure, she left Lloth, but its not like she went to worship Torm instead.
I don't know why you would just accuse @TheGraveDigger of being "in denial" and "lying". That is incredibly rude considering two things:
1. You opnely admitted to having absolutely no idea what you are talking about since you never refused to help Drizzt
2. You are actually wrong. In a admittedly bizarre bit of mischaracterization Bioware decided that Drizzt would attack you for simply being rude to him. Not for actively pursuing evil actions, just literally refusing to help him against gnolls he can kill in his sleep will cause him to turn hostile.
I mean, you placed a lot of trust in her having a "good side". But we all know
"Trust is for the foolish... and the dead"
As for Viconia, she is pretty clearly evil in a way, but there are plenty of reasons to sympathize with her. Growing up in Drow society pretty much dictates that you are at best Neutral Evil if you're going to survive. If you're not looking out for yourself in that world, then nobody's looking out for you. Also, all of the supposedly good (mercenaries, guards, not to mention the entire mob and guard contingent in the government district in BG2) surfacers that outdo her in evil by literally attempting to murder her for no more than her race make it pretty difficult to hate her. I'd say it's easy to sympathize because most would become at the very least self-serving if faced with her situation.
Efficient? Absolutely. But likable? I think he generally behaves like a complete douche. There's a reason that he only has about 8 or 9 charisma (uncharacteristically low for an elf).
And I don't believe that he proved his point at all - in fact, I feel that he comes off looking like the "evil" one in this exchange.
From what I understand (though I could be wrong), this interaction has always existed in BG1, but the original game was bugged so that it seldom, if ever, fully played out. I remember playing vanilla and seeing the first two lines of the interaction numerous times, but then nothing after that. It would appear that either EE or the Project fixed whatever was impeding the interaction.
Unless that person had already met Drizzt (which my party has) - and even if they hadn't, Drizzt is already well-known and renowned throughout the Realms as a hero, so much so that your rep takes a massive hit if you kill him. I think a more "liberal" person would keep an open mind to the possibility that a drow could be a "renegade" like Drizzt.
The problem here is that if you do or say anything to impede the soldier from executing Viconia, he will then attack you, so there's no opportunity to side with the soldier once you've tried to discourage him from killing Viconia.
See @booinyoureyes ' subsequent post for my thoughts on this issue.
Simply put, it isn't simply a matter of who to believe IMO, but the fact that the soldier is intent on simply killing Viconia without either allowing her the opportunity for a fair trial and/or presenting any actual evidence of her guilt.
And incidentally, there's at least one "friendly" beholder in BG2 as well, so even monsters have exceptions to the rule.
So, it would kind of look bad for Kivan to attack Viconia.
But back to the topic of Viconia, yes she is highly manipulative, using every trick she has to keep herself alive. That's her brand of Neutral evil, looking out for herself with no regard for other people.
Her being able to change her alignment doesn't mean that she's just hiding her goodness, it's just that the PC helps her through her issues.
I wouldn't say that she's completely, heartlessly evil, as there's an encounter with a beggar in Athkatla where she actually shows some genuine compassion. I don't think she necessarily enjoys acting the way she does, but she does what needs to be done in order to survive. She is a broken, very emotionally messed up woman, the kind you would actually meet out on the street with the "hurt everyone else before they hurt you mentality".
So in that regard, she is evil, just not irreversibly so. Someone actually proving that they honestly care about her breaks her a bit, but I imagine that even years down the road she never completely changed. Can absolutely see her becoming the mom that would enjoy skinning a person alive just for looking at her child wrong lol.
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Back to topic... IIRC that "friendly" beholder was merely "non-hostile" because cooperation (if you made the right suggestions) was mutually beneficial. Also I kinda felt he was a bit of comic relief rather than a serious character like Viconia or Drizzt.
I guess my main point above was that if we don't subconsciously humanize Viconia because she looks like an attractive female human being, and is placed in a classic damsel in distress scenario, then would a Good/Lawful character really kill an (albeit questionable) Flaming Fist soldier to defend her? It's not like she's completely helpless, she does fight back against the soldier.
Remember that if you are seriously roleplaying the scenario, you cannot use metagame knowledge about how you can redeem Viconia in the long run via romance, to make a decision about her in the present.
I just think it is rather unfair to judge Good characters' intolerance and hostility towards evil characters and races based on modern sensibilities, when the setting is clearly much darker and much more dangerous than even our own Medieval Age.
I guess a lot depends on your interpretation of evil in the FR setting. If you take a fairly simplistic view that evil deities are objectively evil, and races/individuals can be objectively evil, then "racism" is easier to justify than if "Drow and Beholders are evil because of their harsh environment and they need to be evil to survive." I know the subject is further complicated by lore inconsistency and development.
Idealists are more capable of changing the world for the better than realists, especially when they hold on to their ideals while embracing reality. Also, you miss the point. Viconia is capable of changing for the better, even though she will deny that she is capable of making such a personality change at first, but there are bigoted characters like Kivan and Keldorn who won't give her that chance no matter what you say to convince them otherwise. Whether you side with Viconia over Kivan or Keldorn or Kivan or Keldorn over Viconia can be easily justified for good aligned characters, that's where I'm getting at, you can role play as a character who would side with the good aligned characters all the time without question or second thoughts, or be the unorthodox hero siding with some evil aligned characters believing that they have some good in them. This is what I meant when I said that I like that the Baldur's Gate characters are not portrayed in black and white, you know, good and evil in a bland way. They are complex characters capable of development for better or worse, they get you thinking things like "I know she/he killed some guy, but does she/he really deserve to die for it? It was self defense, the guy attacked first", instead of simple things like "OMG! A drow! Kill him/her, they're evil!!!" It makes the characters of the game more alive and realistic when there is more to their nature than what you see at face value.
The main reason why she became a cleric of Shar is because she has lost a lot in her life, her brother and home, for example, living as a hunted outsider on the surface. I prefer to be a chaotic good aligned "naive" idealist instead of a bigot. I don't expect you to agree with my beliefs, it doesn't matter to me whether people like @ThatTwitchyGuy believes I'm an angry BG gamer or not. In the words of Mal Reynolds from the canceled show "Firefly", "I aim to misbehave".
I didn't claim that @TheGraveDigger was lying, I was confused and unsure if he was being truthful or dishonest of Drizzt's nature, because I've read four FR books with Drizzt in it, so I pretty much intimately know his personality, and I never had the heart to refuse his calls for help, or attack him afterwards, so you should have no issues about my surprise learning that Drizzt threatens to attack you if you refuse to help him with the gnolls. The way I see it, this is one of many reasons why the game is considered non-canon to WOTC, Drizzt is no short-tempered drow who expects you to perform a good deed, he holds himself to the highest of ideals, but does not expect the same from anyone else, he is a thoughtful and sensitive character, he's alert for treachery and danger, and is a perfectionist who yearns for nothing more than to be accepted and befriended by people.
Has the thought ever occurred to you that if Viccy really believes that trust is for the foolish and dead, why does she trust Charname, following him/her around and calling him/her "abbil", which means "comrade" or "trusted friend"? Maybe she has conflicting feelings about the ways of the drow and what is necessary to survive on the surface since not everyone is like the drow, like gaining the trust of a surfacer in order to find peace in her life? Inevitably, she ceases to remain neutral evil aligned at the end of Throne of Bhaal whether you romanced her or not.
I haven't been playing the BG series for a long time like you vets, but understand that I'm a fast learner. I got some of the novels, sourcebooks, I read up in FR lore on the Internet, etc. Thanks to the BG:EE series, I am hooked on everything Forgotten Realms related.
@BladeDancer
I agree with your way of thinking, and reckon just about everyone has a messed up form of "good" if you dig deep enough. But you really have to dig deep with Viconia... She makes nothing easy, as most of her quotes in this thread have proved... she's always threatening people, mocking people, and being very cruel.
She follows Charname because she knows he's stronger, like I mentioned in the Neutral Evil code...
4. You shall not aid the weak.
5. You shall honor those who are stronger
If Charname was weak she'd step on you like a bug. Look at how she treats Aerie and other *weak* characters.
My biggest problem is that people believe siding with her over Kivan is a "good" act.