The Bhaalspawn's True/Canon Fate
Korbu
Member Posts: 61
So, how many people here know the canon fate of the protagonist Bhaalspawn?
In the Forgotten Realms novels, the protagonist Bhaalspawn, Abdel Adrian ends up turning down the Throne of Bhaal, and walking away from it while retaining his Bhaalspawn essence.
WotC have released a tabletop P&P campaign called "Murder in Baldur's Gate", in which Duke Abdel Adrian is slain by his half-brother Viekang (the teleporting Bhaalspawn in Trademeet and Saradush), which transforms Viekang into the Slayer. When the players of the campaign kill Slayer-Viekang, Bhaal is resurrected.
So basically, all the protagonist Bhaalspawn's actions in Baldurs Gate 1, 2 and ToB, were for nothing. Bhaal still got what he wanted, his children were nothing more than the fuel for his resurrection after all.
I think these events, are going to make it very hard for Beamdog to get permission to make a BG 3, unfortunately.
In the Forgotten Realms novels, the protagonist Bhaalspawn, Abdel Adrian ends up turning down the Throne of Bhaal, and walking away from it while retaining his Bhaalspawn essence.
WotC have released a tabletop P&P campaign called "Murder in Baldur's Gate", in which Duke Abdel Adrian is slain by his half-brother Viekang (the teleporting Bhaalspawn in Trademeet and Saradush), which transforms Viekang into the Slayer. When the players of the campaign kill Slayer-Viekang, Bhaal is resurrected.
So basically, all the protagonist Bhaalspawn's actions in Baldurs Gate 1, 2 and ToB, were for nothing. Bhaal still got what he wanted, his children were nothing more than the fuel for his resurrection after all.
I think these events, are going to make it very hard for Beamdog to get permission to make a BG 3, unfortunately.
6
Comments
And besides, the novels are based on the storylines of the computer game series. They follow the bare basics of the original stories, but, as novels with linear and not very complex storylines.
So, the Bhaalspawn's True/Canon Fate is only determined by ToB.
My playthrough made it so.
Also Minsc had red hair, but we don't talk about that.
But maybe we should.
I can tell already I'm heading into a ramble. What follows is very much a WiP, some thoughts related to the subject at hand that may or may not add up to anything. It's probably TL, so feel free to DR.
*achem*
This sort of thing is an issue when it comes to practically any long-running narrative property that's not controlled by a single creator. Elements of previous stories are grist for the mill for future ones, and the perspective of those in charge of the future may not line up with those who created the past. That's how you end up with Spider-Man literally making a deal with the devil to disappear the marriage the character had been in the previous 20 years. Or midichlorians, for that matter (having a single creator in charge isn't always the greatest thing in the world.)
Some people see this sort of thing as an attack on their much-loved older stories. That idea may be more personal for gamers who experienced the story in a very specific way via a character they created. I don't want to minimize that frustration, I understand it, I've felt it myself.
Faced with that, you can decide it isn't worth continuing playing the BG games, knowing that it "doesn't matter" because in the end, some guy named Abdel is the only story that "counts". That accepts that the novels and PnP games are "real" and the videogames aren't. That's a desirable thing for the creators and curators of the property going forward, because it gives them a solid square one from which to build the next story, one that's consistent across various iterations of the property. In almost every media other than games, the people creating the next wave of material know their work isn't being created in a vacuum, and that it may be invalidated, ignored, or reinterpreted somewhere down the line.
The difference with games is that the creation is a collaborative process, not just between the designers and writers, but with completely external creators who they may never communicate with--the players. And that's where things get dodgy, because the player experience can't be quanitified as easily as everyone else's contributions to the narrative can*. If it did, all the Forgotten Realms would have a god with hundreds of thousands of names, and one of them would be "Stabby McStabbypants".
Stabby never became a duke of Baldur's Gate, and she wasn't killed in a fight with Viekang. That's not what happened. But Stabby's experience is as valid as Abdel Adrian's--even more valid. The novels adapted the game, not the other way around. Stabby's (and her player's) experience of the story was almost certainly more direct and visceral than the writer of the novels'. The writer's telling a tale, the player is, to a much greater extent, living it. Who has the right to discount that experience?
No one. And though it may feel that way, no one is trying to--they're just trying to set up the next wave of stories and games as best they can. To do that, someone has decided they needed the official version of ToB to end with the Bhaalspawn rejecting godhood. Was that right or wrong?
The best way to judge that would be to play the games that follow and see how much you enjoy them. And, though I know it can be hard to ignore, especially for people who are long-term and ongoing fans of Forgotten Realms, the best way to enjoy the games that came before is try to ignore that which comes after (easier to do with a game that just came out, as opposed to one that has 15 years of continuity built on top of it, I'll admit.) Because it is a collaborative medium, and someone is going to do something you don't agree with. Does that invalidate your experience of the game you played? If you let it, sure.
All you can do is try not to let it, because that way lies madness. You can't control** what people do outside the game you're playing. So you might as well enjoy and savour the experience you have. Stabby's a god, so's the OP's character. In some world, a guy named Abdel turned it down. In that world, Minsc had red hair. Does Minsc have red hair in your character's world? He doesn't in Stabby's. So what's "real"? What's more important to *you*? I'd hope it's the game you played. If it's not... well, sometimes it can be hard to see the forest with all these treees in the way.
*Quantifying creative contributions can be tough even when creators are working cheek to jowl 10 hours a day in the same office.
**You might be able to influence it, but in multiple instances in the case of Abdel, the decision was made and in print before anyone outside the creative center of the game was able to give input.
Still, I think it would be ideal if we had a consensus of some sort, or a new novel to overwrite the old ones. Nobody's going to cry foul and accuse the new author of erasing a good story, not in this case.
The books were infamous for having an evil, unlikable protagonist. And for having rape turn Imoen gay. I don't want that canonical. I want a canon that's at least half as good as the game.
Yay home rules!
Unfortunately, the BG novels by Phil Athans are canon according to WotC. Then WotC uses the protagonist Bhaalspawn as a way to explain how Bhaal is resurrected during the Sundering event (which i hate).
The "need" for canon is what made the SW universe so weird and illogical at times. I applaud the new approach of just ditching everything and starting anew. I know SW has nothing to do with BG/FR, but my point being in that no matter what canon story the owners of the franchise set, it can be changed in the future if needed. I haven't read the novels (ever heard of'em before visiting this forum and don't really wanna read them either after what you guys have said about them) but I guess if a new writer, be it @semiticgod or another one, write a new story of the bhaal spawn it can replace the Abdel one as being canon if just enough ppl actually use it.
Since Abdel chose not to ascend at the end of ToB, I feel that the game protagonist should not either, and the reason why not is to avoid a shift of power in the pantheon of Faerunian gods, it would impact the Realms in a good or bad way depending on whether he/she is good or evil. Changing the Forgotten Realms the way the game protagonist and player sees fit is something I believe that Wizards of The Coast does not want. They do not want any Forgotten Realms based novels or games to do anything in their story that would drastically change the Forgotten Realms universe. I'm not sure if the overgod Ao would be able to step in and put a stop to the extreme imbalance of law or chaos the protagonist Bhaalspawn would cause if he/she canonically ascended, but better safe than sorry, he/she should remain mortal whether some of you like it or not.
The game protagonist of the Baldur's Gate series has the potential to change the Realms for better or worse if he/she ascends to godhood, and I think WoTC, although they liked the game and probably wanted it to be canon, refused to leave the future of the Realms in the hands of people who play the games, or even the novel writer, so they wanted a novel series based on the games that has a main character who would not be interested in anything, not stopping a war that would devastate a land, not rescuing anyone he barely knows (unless its Jaheira), not even gaining power for himself or ascending, which in my opinion is the reason why Phil Athans made Abdel have such a deeply dull and apathetic personality, it is probably what WoTC wanted to prevent the Realms from changing after ToB. It was a half-baked attempt to color his personality in a way that shows when the time comes, he would have absolutely no interest in becoming a god, he would refuse it, and likely return to Candlekeep and waste his life doing nothing meaningful.
As for hints to the the game protagonist's canon fate, I noticed throughout the game that the game protagonist "canonically" intends on rebelling against his/her destiny as a child of Bhaal, as I have noticed in one of the Dark Moon heretic trials where acolytes have to reveal their darkest secret, when he/she says:
"Here is my secret: I am a son/daughter of Bhaal. I know in my heart that my fate is not my own, but I still strive to forge my own path. One of my greatest fears is that all my efforts will come to naught." (This is the only dialogue you can choose during one of the tests, whether you are good or evil).
This is the only dialogue choice during one of those trials, and I can't imagine an evil aligned game protagonist, or one who desires to embrace his/her fate saying this, it leads directly up to the outcome of the game protagonist choosing to remain a mortal. And as for Abdel, he has no interest in anyone (except Jaheira) or anything but his mundane life, but in the ToB novel, he matures a bit (because Drew Karpyshyn wrote that novel), he somehow realizes that in order to protect his free will and future, he can't remain apathetic, he must fight the Bhaalspawn instead of wishing and whining about going back to Candlekeep and hiding there until the Bhaalspawn incident blows over (whining about returning to Candlekeep is pretty much all he does in the SoA novel after he rescues Imoen and Jaheira, and they have to convince him why he must stop Irenicus).
And Viconia notes the male game protagonist's actions in rebelling against his legacy in one of her romance dialogues, being disgusted that you refuse to take your destiny as a child of Bhaal even if you have proven that you are evil and embrace your destiny. I've noticed that the moral of the BG games is that no matter how dark your past is, it does not control your future unless you let it or want it to.
In my unofficial Enhanced Edition BG series novelization (I'm still working on SoA), I consider Abdel and the game protagonist (who for me is a CG aligned human male classed fighter that I named Ralis, the photo I use for him is my username avatar picture here) to be two different characters, Gorion adopted Abdel first, then a few years later, my game protagonist, then Imoen, and when Abdel becomes a teenager, he left Candlekeep to become a mercenary years before the events of the first BG game, leaving my game protagonist and Imoen the only children for Gorion to raise, as if Abdel never existed. He and my game protagonist eventually reunite in my SoA fan fiction and travel together with Jaheira, Neera, Aerie and everyone else, and I also got him romancing Jaheira, just like in the official novel, the only difference is Jaheira does not have the "shrieking damsel in distress" personality that she has in the official novel.
In other words, I've found a way to embrace canon details and my own canon at the same time while working on my fan fiction. You can either reject the novels as canon and accept the games as canon or both of them, I discovered that they are consistent with each other.
We don't have to like it, but that's a fact.
And frankly, I don't mind. There was no way for everyone's Bhaalspawn to be canon. In a way, such an unpopular Bhaalspawn being canon is the perfect solution. Basically nobody really wants Abdel to be canon, and so we mostly ignore Abdel to focus on our own stories.
If Abdel had been well-written and consistent to the plot of the games, there'd probably be more people arguing about that Bhaalspawn than there are now. But Abdel wasn't very well written isn't and that's liberating in a respect.
We know there's a canon, but 90% of us don't really like it, and we're aware of that, so we can focus on our games.
Fact is, the legal owner of a story can determine its current state. How important is thatreally to us? Certainly, it is not unimportant when an author like Rowling, Martin, or Tolkien makes a statement that influences the meaning of something she or he has written earlier - But that's not even the case here: Baldur's Gate (and Dungeons and Dragons and the Forgotten Realms) are a *franchise* that is developed by a multitude of people (and a bunch of businessmen who possibly care only for the numbers). If they suddenly fired R.A. Salvatore, then *his* influence on what's canon in the Realms would wither at the same moment.
I maintain that a reader (or consumer) must not care about any canon at all. One ought to regard a fantasy world as a toolbox from which one can take all the interesting bits and ignore what one doesn't enjoy. Compare the Homeric and the Arthurian "campaign setting". There certainly are core motifs that appear in the works of different authors. Hercules or Sir Gawain, for instance, do have a distinctive character to them, but no author needs to slavishly bow to every detail that had been written earlier.
Sure wish I had a good sandwich, though.
Much Moldy
Wow
Anyway the BG books are so shitty I cannot consider them canon.
As for BG3, well, I would really like it to be with an ascended Charname battling real powers in the planes to gain even more influence if evil, or to wipe the Evil out of the Realm. And (s)he would have to manage a cult as well.
Given the level of power you reach when you end ToB, there is nothing that would match your skills, even as a mortal. Like, Elminster himself says he would not take you on. Basically you only have the Tarrasque that could put up a fight
The Matrix is a virtual reality in which humanity is kept prisoner by evil machines that have taken over the world. (That's a very brief summary - for a more detailed explanation, please watch this video).
The protagonist is a hacker named Neo who turns out to be a living link to the Source, which is the mainframe of the Matrix. The villain is Agent Smith, a former *ahem* agent of the system who becomes a virus that replicates by assimilating other people, turning them into copies of him.
So the last Matrix movie ends with the final battle between both. After a big/explosive/violent brawl, Neo realizes that fighting is useless and the only way to defeat Smith is by being assimilated, creating a link between Smith and the Source, which in turn will allow the Matrix to get rid of the virus.
Anyway, the movies end in a low note. It's a poignant ending in which the hero sacrifices himself to save humanity.
Now let me tell you about a video game that was released shortly after the movie. It's called The Matrix: Path of Neo. In this game, you play as Neo and the plot follows the movies closely. The only big divergence happens in (you guessed it) the final battle with Agent Smith.
The developers explain that while the ending worked for the movies, it would have been too anticlimactic for an action video game, robbing players of the catharsis of saving the day via kicking the villain's ass.
Not necessarily a good idea, but that's beside the point, which is: playing the game and watching the movies are meant to be different experiences.
I honestly don't understand why some folks feel in any way compelled to reconcile the BG games with the novelizations.
The game was designed for you to make your personal version of the story by creating your own character, choosing your own companions and ultimately choosing one of several possible endings. That is the reason the BG saga exists. It was conceived as a game.
It's just that being an official product, the BG series has to fit in the Forgotten Realms timeline somehow. And for that you need a canon version of the story, hence the novelizations. But it's not meant to interfere with one's gaming experience at all. They're supposed to be ignored as you play the games.
Let's save our disappointment for other things. Such as Yoda using a lightsaber.