SoD was a fun dungeon crawl spruced up with interesting large-scale battles but I think it would have been better as a standalone campaign. It was all a bit over-the-top for an interquel, even re-using the grand finale of Shadows of Amn by having the party traveling to the lower planes for the final boss (admittedly the circumstances are different but still). It makes a lot of things in BG2 lose a bit of their freshness, from Charname's point of view.
The hooded man was absolutely terrible though, there's no sugarcoating this. He behaves exactly like Bhaal does and him appearing in the dreams makes no sense -- he wouldn't have had enough of an impact on Charname's life to justify Bhaal taking his appearance. The writer appears to have forgotten than BG2 Dream Irenicus is not Irenicus.
Caelar's motives don't fit any alignment. I think this is an interesting detail here.
1. Doing something for somebody else's benefit is certainly not evil, as it's not selfish. This rules out: a. Lawful Evil b. Neutral Evil c. Chaotic Evil
3. Doing it at the expense of so many others is certainly not good, as it's not benevolent. This rules out: a. Lawful Good b. Neutral Good c. Chaotic Good
3. Abiding by a strict personal code is certainly not chaotic. This rules out: a. Chaotic Neutral
5. Breaking all other rules is certainly not lawful. This rules out: a. Lawful Neutral
6. Being devoted to a specific calling, but not to maintaining the balance, is certainly not neutral. This rules out: a. True Neutral (both interpretation, non-alignment and the druid philosophy)
Which is a limitation of the D&D alignment system, not a problem with Caelar's characterisation.
Caelar's motives don't fit any alignment. I think this is an interesting detail here.
1. Doing something for somebody else's benefit is certainly not evil, as it's not selfish. This rules out: a. Lawful Evil b. Neutral Evil c. Chaotic Evil
3. Doing it at the expense of so many others is certainly not good, as it's not benevolent. This rules out: a. Lawful Good b. Neutral Good c. Chaotic Good
3. Abiding by a strict personal code is certainly not chaotic. This rules out: a. Chaotic Neutral
5. Breaking all other rules is certainly not lawful. This rules out: a. Lawful Neutral
6. Being devoted to a specific calling, but not to maintaining the balance, is certainly not neutral. This rules out: a. True Neutral (both interpretation, non-alignment and the druid philosophy)
Which is a limitation of the D&D alignment system, not a problem with Caelar's characterisation.
I wasn't criticizing Caelar's characterization; I just found it interesting that her motives were so hard to categorize, since most characters do fit at least partly into the alignment system.
Personally, I'm glad that you guys came away with a different view than I did. I can see where you guys are coming from and I like a bit of conversation about the game in general. Believe me, I am no stranger to apathetic or nihilistic thoughts but my mind didn't react in that way towards this character or the story in general.
I think the ending dialogue allows you to support your own view of the shining lady and you can sort of choose your way to the conclusion that suits you best. For me, I like it when the shining lady completes her goal and pays for the evil path she took toward achieving it.
I tend to be apathetic towards sheep that follow people off cliffs or in this case, into the pits of hell itself. But I have a very slim line of tolerance and I consider it a personal character flaw of mine.
In any case, the point of my analogy was that someone who gets out of a pool cannot get more wet than they already are. You could pour a hundred buckets of water on them and they would not be anymore wet then they were when they got out of the pool. In the same vain, Caelar could kill another man or lead another thousand to their death and it wouldn't matter to her. Her soul is already unredeemable and her life is already lost, both in the eyes of her family and in her own eyes.
Most people that hit rock bottom like that will kill themselves but sometimes they will cling onto something in life and pursue it in a non logical, sometimes reckless manor. In her case, her family has the paladin trait of biting and never letting go and the only person in life that was empathetic toward her mistake was the one who's life was ruined by it. She swore to free him and did it at any cost. She was aware of her wrongs but she was beyond the point of caring. It makes sense to me and that is what I have taken away from it.
The reason I said in my review that I didn't think she was a great villain was simply to point out that she was a unique character that doesn't fit the typical villain trope.
I appreciate this discussion, as you are raising some good points and interesting questions, and there has not been enough substantive discussion of SoD IMO.
I can see what you're saying in your analogy about being completely wet, I was viewing that from my viewpoint rather than from Caelar's view. To me, there is a finite limit to how wet one can get, but the issue of how "corrupted" one's soul can be is not so simple. It also depends on one's religious/ethical views of good and evil and the soul, which is probably getting more complicated than is needed here.
But to me, the whole point of mainstream good aligned theology and spirituality is that no one is beyond redemption, so someone who has committed an evil act or sin shouldn't claim that they "can't become any wetter than they already are." That implies that they are a higher authority on their soul and redemption than any god or religion, which adds to Caelar's pride.
I can understand how someone would personally feel this, and it demonstrates her character flaws, but from an impartial third person POV her claim that in for a penny in for a pound is arrogant and incorrect. I wonder if no one in her life counseled her that no sin is beyond forgiveness, or whether she just chose to ignore any thoughts other than justifying why she could stick to her plans regardless of consequences.
Vbibbi, I understand where you are coming from and agree with you for the most part. This post is not about arguing a point but some thoughts off the top of my head.
I think I feel similar to the way you do regarding evil and redemption when it comes to the overall picture of life but as an individual I don't know that I really have any judgement towards the extreme acts of others. I used to but I have slowly stopped caring over the years. I have values that I follow but I have given up on holding others to my own standards. Some may but many will not and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Getting angry and judging people as garbage won't get me anywhere. I am empathetic toward people who do evil deeds. Apathy towards others only closes the mind. I put myself in their shoes in the hopes that I will learn something about humanity and myself. I don't sympathize with acts of evil though.
Most people probably believe in redemption. Some don't, but I think most peoples views are based off of their judgements of others not about the core definition of good and evil. A man who kills someone is bad. A man who kills two is even worse. But is he? He is the same man he was when he killed the first person. No different. It's worse to you that he killed more because another life was lost but to him I doubt it really matters. Most serial killers probably don't even know how many people they have killed. They do evil deeds or deeds that most people would label as evil but if they tried to redeem themselves it wouldn't really matter to anyone else. Others might acknowledge that they are sorry and are trying harder to do good but the fact of the matter is they will always be a murderer. Some people can forgive crimes and some can't. I guess it just depends on who you are but you can never wash the crime away. There is a reason we have minds.
If you lose your virginity before marriage there is no getting it back. It doesn't matter if you are sorry you did it or continued to do it everyday for the rest of your life. You failed to live up to a moral value. In the overarching view of the world. I think it would be good to recognize when you have made a mistake and try to do better but when it comes right down to it. You either did live up to a standard or you didn't.
Take Hitler for example, do you think he really cared after the first week of killing? Do you think he was more evil after the first month than he was the first week? Would it really matter to anyone if he tried to redeem himself? If he stopped the killing than many lives would be saved and people would be grateful but would the man be considered any less evil than he is currently? Would he be any less of a monster if he had only killed half as many? After a point, I have to admit that I don't think I really care even when I am judging others. Presently my mind just passes over him and moves on. Genghis Khan and Vlad the Impaler, ect. I don't even want to go there.
To Caelar's family I would assume killing one honorable man was so unforgivable in their eyes that they don't even have a scale that counts to two. It all comes down to how extreme your beliefs are and how crazy your mind is. People have justified things in their minds that I can't even begin to imagine what is wrong with them.
Hitting the bottom of the bottle. No hope left, completely devoid of morals and completely numb to the world. It may sound unrealistic but people go there. They go there when they shoot up schools and kill themselves. We see it on the tele everyday. I believe Caelar went there but she had one goal that she hung onto and decided to follow through knowing that it would probably result in her burning in hell.
REMEMBER EVERYONE SMILE, THIS IS LIKE SOME GREAT FANTASY!
SoD was a fun dungeon crawl spruced up with interesting large-scale battles but I think it would have been better as a standalone campaign. It was all a bit over-the-top for an interquel, even re-using the grand finale of Shadows of Amn by having the party traveling to the lower planes for the final boss (admittedly the circumstances are different but still). It makes a lot of things in BG2 lose a bit of their freshness, from Charname's point of view.
The hooded man was absolutely terrible though, there's no sugarcoating this. He behaves exactly like Bhaal does and him appearing in the dreams makes no sense -- he wouldn't have had enough of an impact on Charname's life to justify Bhaal taking his appearance. The writer appears to have forgotten than BG2 Dream Irenicus is not Irenicus.
From what I heard, Beamdog wanted to make it a stand alone but they couldn't because of contractual stuff. They would probably have to use 5E if they were to make a new stand alone game. As expansion packs they can continue to use the old 2E ruleset.
Personally I was glad to see Irenicus in SOD but I agree with some others on this board that he was overused. I think Beamdog probably wanted to give David as much meat as possible because they are fans and respect him. Everyone has an opinion on how the game could be better for them and it's easy to pick over the game and say what you would change.
In my eyes I think the first meeting with the hooded man would have been much more cool if it happened on the streets of Baldur's Gate. He looks like a beggar or a refuge. I think the scene with him getting angry at the evil mage was well done and I would keep that. Other than that, I would have him appear in the jail cell with your character when he wakes up and the end. Have him let you know that what you were afraid of and tried to kill in Dragonspear castle wasn't a monster, it was you. He would then open your cell, hand you a potion of invisibility, and tell you where to find the soul taker dagger as a final test of your worth before teleporting away. You would escape through the sewers and when you go to the dagger's location you get jumped and move on to BG2. He would have two appearances in the game and one out of game appearance for the audience and that is all.
I am not a big fan of the dream sequences but these are personal preferences. Overall I think Beamdog did a good job and I enjoyed the story even if I would have done some things differently if I were writing it. It's probably a good thing I am not though because I am no professional writer.
I have some other thoughts about the overarching messages that the trilogy has about the topic of murder and I was thinking of talking about the effects that SOD, the EE's and even mods like Tutu and Trilogy have had on the second game's impact but I have aready typed way too much and have other things I need to do tonight.
It would be cool if we could get a bunch of people in here talking about the various aspects of the game. This forum has been slow lately.
I do feel the need to state my personal opinion that not saving one's virginity for marriage is completely fine if that is the person's choice. That to me is a personal decision and has nothing to do with morality as much as personal ethics.
Having gotten that out of the way, I have to remember that D&D has objectified morality in the alignment system and has gods as factually acknowledged beings in the universe. So really comparisons between real world morality and religion to that of D&D games is never going to be a 1:1 analogy.
In the real world, there is no scale of morality which we can use to judge how "evil" a person is. I also don't believe in absolute good or evil, so it's hard to put those labels on people. I'm more likely to judge someone based on their actions and opinions today than try to tally up their entire moral history. If someone shows genuine remorse and acts to correct past mistakes, that's better than someone who did good deeds all of their life for praise and attention and therefore feels they should be allowed some moral lapses every once and a while as a reward. There's a theory about "moral balancing" where people will internally keep track of what they consider good and bad deeds and justify doing something bad as a "reward" for the good deeds that they have done.
Kind of off topic here. In regards to Caelar, I don't remember all of the details of her backstory, but if her family was willing to kick her out for an unintentional mistake she committed when she was a child, they are just as much to blame for how she turned out as she is. Any person who claims to be Good with a capital G should never abandon someone who made an honest mistake, regardless of the consequences, and especially one so vulnerable. It was their duty to warn her not to explore where she shouldn't and to protect her from the consequences. If I were a DM in that story, I would have had any of Caelar's family members who were paladins fall for kicking her out.
@the_sextein I wasn't saying that Irenicus shouldn't have been here, just that he was out-of-character. Hadn't he been voiced by David Warner, making the connection really inevitable, I'm not sure I would have recognized him.
It could actually have been a pretty cool twist: the taint's influence grows and Bhaal starts to be able to exert some influence even outside the dreams. The hooded man would have been an hallucination and Charname would have killed Skie for real.
I felt Irenicus was absoluetly in character in SoD. Stripped of empathy, he is a pure scientist. Observing, testing, and comparing, he divides the world into test subjects and irrelevancies. He doesn't need to work in secret or through fallible intermediaries, since there is nothing and no one that can touch him* (as demonstrated by his cowled wizard massacre at the begining of BG2).
*apart from Elminster perhaps, but he waits until he has lost interest before getting involved.
I think Ski's corpse could have been re-animated and had some sort of illusion cast on her to make her look like the slayer in the real world. Irenicus could have stayed out of the scene all togather. That way the player is not sure if he is hallucinating or not and he feels like he killed Ski until the scene in Baldus Gate where the dagger confirms that you didn't kill her. Irenicus could then show himself as the Villian that is responsible for her death at the jail cell in the end.
Most people probably believe in redemption. Some don't, but I think most peoples views are based off of their judgements of others not about the core definition of good and evil. A man who kills someone is bad. A man who kills two is even worse. But is he? He is the same man he was when he killed the first person. No different. It's worse to you that he killed more because another life was lost but to him I doubt it really matters.
That's at least debateable, but out of scope. Also redemption is a christian concept, which therefore can not be universally applied.
But I agree, that the perception of other people change.
Famous quote: Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill one million and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone and you are God.
(Hello ToB )
Also, the Hitler analogy is really flawed. It's often used to describe some supposed "Incarnation of evil", but that's highly misleading and doesn't help understanding how all of that was possible. But again, that's out of scope here.
I don't think you guys are seeing what I am saying, or at least misunderstanding my intention. I don't believe that any man is totally evil and I never hinted at that. Hitler did many evil deeds and if he had stopped doing them it would have saved lives but how evil he is as a man is not quantifiable I agree. Like I was saying with a murderer who kills two people instead of one. He is still the same man in the end. That's is why I posed the question of weather or not he is more evil the more people he has killed. This ties in with the assumption that Caelar should have stopped killing people and started to redeem herself when she clearly was beyond the point of caring.
Redemption may be of Christian origin but so is the sanctity of marriage. I am not religious and I don't care if you or Vbbibi is. He believes in redemption and not in the sanctity of marriage. They are both moral values regardless of your opinion of them or what faith or human mind conceptualized them. Weather you agree with them and live your life by them are based on your opinions of them. That is really all there is too it.
As far as I can tell marriage was a tool used by Christianity to push people to be responsible before having kids. Having kids responsibly and raising them responsibly is a moral value to me personally but I see marriage as a piece of paper. Marriage was established at a time when organized society was more chaotic than it is now. I wouldn't be surpassed if 3 out every 4 kids that are born today are probably born to irresponsible people that have a moral obligation to raise their kids responsibly. I think statistically 2 out of every 3 marriages fail these days so I would say the purpose of marriage failed but my view of marriage was never the point.
It's not about my views on marriage or evil. I simply used the sanctity of marriage as a point to show that you cannot redeem yourself in that situation. You either lived up to that moral value or you failed at it. Both points were within the scope of the conversation in my opinion. I was talking about making a mistake and being unable to go back once you failed to live up to a moral value. Some people don't think it is a moral value to live and let live. Some think they have a moral responsibility to kill anyone that doesn't believe what they do because the world will become overrun with heathens. The human mind is a chaotic slop. I figure Caelar failed to live up to the moral standards of her family. Mistake or no, they were probably very strong in their beliefs and there was no turning back time or redemption in they're eyes(weather we agree with them or not is not important.) I was told at the camp when I asked about info on Caelar that her family considered both her and her uncle to have been lost in the incident even though she survived.
EDIT:
I think we should get back on topic about the game and review. I don't care if you guys are religious or how you live your lives and I am not trying to preach my own beliefs. I was trying to pose questions that would spark conversation but it took us off topic so my bad. lets just move on.
Indeed, there seems to be some misunderstanding (keep in my mind, english is not my native lang)
I think I understand, what you want to say with the marriage/redemption/evil part and I agree to some extend, but at the same time I think it's not that "simple". That's why I think pursuing this further would be out of scope of the topic.
Religion is philosophy for the mediocre mind. Religious people do not need reason or arguments, because they...believe. That's partly why I object using terms which stem from christianity.
So to come back to Irenicus: He has no knowledge of the slayer, or does he?
Bodhi's comment in Spellhold implies this was something new and unexpected. Just highlights how hard it was to thread that needle between BG1 and BG2. Maybe someday a modder or group or them will come out with a massive dialog update to make things more contiguous between BG1 and SoD and BG2 if you play a complete game with the same characters. Or maybe Beamdog can still make enough small tweaks (if they are entered in Redmine) to resolve these issues in 2.4 or 2.5.
I felt Irenicus was absoluetly in character in SoD. Stripped of empathy, he is a pure scientist. Observing, testing, and comparing, he divides the world into test subjects and irrelevancies. He doesn't need to work in secret or through fallible intermediaries, since there is nothing and no one that can touch him* (as demonstrated by his cowled wizard massacre at the begining of BG2).
*apart from Elminster perhaps, but he waits until he has lost interest before getting involved.
I don't believe he is out of character most of the time. I just think the dreams are not needed and as was pointed out they really don't match the dreams from either previous game. I wander why he would take the time to show up in the ducal palace of all places just to let you know that he is watching you. It doesn't seem correct and that is probably what kurona was getting at.
Bodhi may not be privy to all that Irenicus knows though. It's also possible that they are aware of the slayer form but they are surprised that it is strong enough in you to make it surface. Especially after they just sucked your soul out.
While this is true, afaik noone has knowledge of the slayer. It's not Bhaal's avatar and iirc there is some dialogue in BG2, where he mentions, that Bodhi told him of what happened and he is not like "everything works just expected". Might dig that up.
I felt Irenicus was absoluetly in character in SoD. Stripped of empathy, he is a pure scientist. Observing, testing, and comparing, he divides the world into test subjects and irrelevancies. He doesn't need to work in secret or through fallible intermediaries, since there is nothing and no one that can touch him* (as demonstrated by his cowled wizard massacre at the begining of BG2).
*apart from Elminster perhaps, but he waits until he has lost interest before getting involved.
I don't believe he is out of character most of the time. I just think the dreams are not needed and as was pointed out they really don't match the dreams from either previous game. I wander why he would take the time to show up in the ducal palace of all places just to let you know that he is watching you. It doesn't seem correct and that is probably what kurona was getting at.
Dreams are a window into the soul. Irenicus needs to observe CHARNAME's dreams in order to evaluate his/her soul, and his presence within the dreams alters them. Quantum mechanics.
As for why he turns up at the Ducal Palace, why not? He can go anywhere he likes, and he wants to prompt the Bhaalspawn into a course of action which will cause Bhaal's essence to grow stronger, as well as pit his two most promising test subjects directly against each other.
Why does Elminster appear in BG1? Is it actually Elminster, or is it Irenicus in disguise?
Dreams are a window into the soul. Irenicus needs to observe CHARNAME's dreams in order to evaluate his/her soul, and his presence within the dreams alters them. Quantum mechanics.
Irenicus has never been shown to be able to invade or affect in any way other people's dreams. If you question him about it in BG2, he doesn't understand what you're talking about, because the Irenicus in the dreams is Bhaal.
THAT'S what I keep saying: SoD Irenicus acts like Bhaal and this is jarring.
Dreams are a window into the soul. Irenicus needs to observe CHARNAME's dreams in order to evaluate his/her soul, and his presence within the dreams alters them. Quantum mechanics.
Irenicus has never been shown to be able to invade or affect in any way other people's dreams. If you question him about it in BG2, he doesn't understand what you're talking about, because the Irenicus in the dreams is Bhaal.
THAT'S what I keep saying: SoD Irenicus acts like Bhaal and this is jarring.
Dreamwalk spell. Pretty much any high level elven mage with access to the Enchantment school would know it. Astral Projection can also be used to access dreams.
But dreams occupy mental space, not physical. Irenicus might appear as Bhaal in a dream, or Bhaal might appear as Irenicus. It's not up to them, how they appear is determined by the subconscious of the dreamer. The Dreamer could easily confuse one invading presence with another.
I felt Irenicus was absoluetly in character in SoD. Stripped of empathy, he is a pure scientist. Observing, testing, and comparing, he divides the world into test subjects and irrelevancies. He doesn't need to work in secret or through fallible intermediaries, since there is nothing and no one that can touch him* (as demonstrated by his cowled wizard massacre at the begining of BG2).
*apart from Elminster perhaps, but he waits until he has lost interest before getting involved.
I don't believe he is out of character most of the time. I just think the dreams are not needed and as was pointed out they really don't match the dreams from either previous game. I wander why he would take the time to show up in the ducal palace of all places just to let you know that he is watching you. It doesn't seem correct and that is probably what kurona was getting at.
The Hooded Man's appearance in the ducal citadel seemed the most extraneous of his appearances in the game. It felt to me that it was put in so we could have a *woah* moment seeing him and Imoen briefly interact. It highlights the difficulties in making an interquel game and Irenicus' role in this: taken as a standalone story, the Hooded Man's presence is confusing and relies on the player already knowing him from BG2. While it's impossible to expect any new player to SoD not to have played the sequential game which was released 15 years ago, it's not great to rely on meta knowledge to have his presence in SoD make sense.
Dreams are a window into the soul. Irenicus needs to observe CHARNAME's dreams in order to evaluate his/her soul, and his presence within the dreams alters them. Quantum mechanics.
Irenicus has never been shown to be able to invade or affect in any way other people's dreams. If you question him about it in BG2, he doesn't understand what you're talking about, because the Irenicus in the dreams is Bhaal.
THAT'S what I keep saying: SoD Irenicus acts like Bhaal and this is jarring.
Dreamwalk spell. Pretty much any high level elven mage with access to the Enchantment school would know it. Astral Projection can also be used to access dreams.
But dreams occupy mental space, not physical. Irenicus might appear as Bhaal in a dream, or Bhaal might appear as Irenicus. It's not up to them, how they appear is determined by the subconscious of the dreamer. The Dreamer could easily confuse one invading presence with another.
Even if the hooded man explicitely casted Dreamwalk (which he doesn't) this spell doesn't appear once in the entire saga. BG may be based on PnP but it isn't PnP. Internal consistency matters.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say with your second paragraph but the way things work in BG is simple: Bhaalspawns need to die so their father can revive. Bhaalspawns who succumb to the taint tend to die faster. Ergo, Bhaal influences them in their dreams thanks to the taint by picking in their memories what he thinks can be useful. He does this to everyone: to Charname, to Sarevok, to Imoen and to that unnamed Fat Man Bhaalspawn who appear in the Pocketplane.
I felt Irenicus was absoluetly in character in SoD. Stripped of empathy, he is a pure scientist. Observing, testing, and comparing, he divides the world into test subjects and irrelevancies. He doesn't need to work in secret or through fallible intermediaries, since there is nothing and no one that can touch him* (as demonstrated by his cowled wizard massacre at the begining of BG2).
*apart from Elminster perhaps, but he waits until he has lost interest before getting involved.
I don't believe he is out of character most of the time. I just think the dreams are not needed and as was pointed out they really don't match the dreams from either previous game. I wander why he would take the time to show up in the ducal palace of all places just to let you know that he is watching you. It doesn't seem correct and that is probably what kurona was getting at.
Dreams are a window into the soul. Irenicus needs to observe CHARNAME's dreams in order to evaluate his/her soul, and his presence within the dreams alters them. Quantum mechanics.
As for why he turns up at the Ducal Palace, why not? He can go anywhere he likes, and he wants to prompt the Bhaalspawn into a course of action which will cause Bhaal's essence to grow stronger, as well as pit his two most promising test subjects directly against each other.
Why does Elminster appear in BG1? Is it actually Elminster, or is it Irenicus in disguise?
To be fair to SoD, Elminster's appearances (and Cadderly and Drizzt) in BG1 were purely Forgotten Realms fanservice and IMO unnecessary. I get that having FR "celebrities" in the game could help sales for a new (at that time) publisher, but there's no actual reason why any of them needed to be in the game. They're slightly better than Drizzt's return in SoA, at least, where we can actually recruit him for NO ACTUAL REASON to fight Bhodi.
Besides that this is all fanfiction/headcanon and not even remotely mentioned ingame.
If you question him about it in BG2, he doesn't understand what you're talking about.
So clearly, Irenicus never tried to influence/observe your dreams. He has no idea what the mark of Papa Bhaal does to CHARNAME.
Also, here is the line, I mentioned above:
Bodhi tells me you have exhibited a... transformation. With your will slowly fading, perhaps the essence of Bhaal will rise to take you. That would be a sight, I am sure.
Perhaps and would be are the keywords. He is still mocking CHARNAME, he has no idea what power CHARNAME is able to invoke.
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And we even have a, while not pretty, straightforward explanation for this, from Andrew Foley no less: Irenicus was not written into the game not from the beginning.
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For the Elminster part, one should not forget, that this game was released when you paid for Internetaccess by the minute or MB. It was a smart decision to include a "guide". I never heard of AD&D before, therefore all those Characters meant nothing to me. Same with Drizzt, it's an ingame tool to help you beat the game and progress with the story, with the added benefit of fanservice.
Well, If Andrew Foley said that then it makes sense that some rough edges would have gotten into the final product. I would think that they could make things better by adding a few lines into BG2 if they are allowed. The dreams I'll admit that I could probably live with the explanation that FarDragon gave but I think deep down that they were not needed and probably don't make as much sense as they should.
I have another question for you guys. What did you think about the green dragon in SOD? Do you think the party is high enough level? How was the strategy and challenge of the battle to you? Does the presence of the green dragon weaken the epic encounter in BG2 when you meet your first dragon? Do you think they should have included it or not?
Also, What difficulty have you played SOD on and what character class did you use? Are you satisfied with the challenge of the game and why?
Personally, I played through my first time with a Fighter/Mage. I played on insane difficulty with SCS. I found the game to be harder than the original game. Tales of the sword coast is pretty difficult with SCS but I felt that my tactics had to be switched up to utilize regular wand usage. I was using 3 to 6 wands at a time on many fights in SOD because of the large enemy spawns that occur on insane difficulty.
The green dragon could be killed in a single round if you use two wands of frost and a wand of heavens combined with the ring you get from the red wizards and a bow shot from Corwin. It would kill the dragon so fast that none of the drakes would even spawn. The wand of frost was changed in Baldur's Gate 2 so that it worked on groups rather than deal massive damage to singular enemies. Having access to multiple wands of frost from the original BG is very OP in my opinion. It can destroy loot so you have to be careful but it can really put the hurt on singular enemies especially if you use more than one at a time.
Comments
The hooded man was absolutely terrible though, there's no sugarcoating this. He behaves exactly like Bhaal does and him appearing in the dreams makes no sense -- he wouldn't have had enough of an impact on Charname's life to justify Bhaal taking his appearance. The writer appears to have forgotten than BG2 Dream Irenicus is not Irenicus.
I can see what you're saying in your analogy about being completely wet, I was viewing that from my viewpoint rather than from Caelar's view. To me, there is a finite limit to how wet one can get, but the issue of how "corrupted" one's soul can be is not so simple. It also depends on one's religious/ethical views of good and evil and the soul, which is probably getting more complicated than is needed here.
But to me, the whole point of mainstream good aligned theology and spirituality is that no one is beyond redemption, so someone who has committed an evil act or sin shouldn't claim that they "can't become any wetter than they already are." That implies that they are a higher authority on their soul and redemption than any god or religion, which adds to Caelar's pride.
I can understand how someone would personally feel this, and it demonstrates her character flaws, but from an impartial third person POV her claim that in for a penny in for a pound is arrogant and incorrect. I wonder if no one in her life counseled her that no sin is beyond forgiveness, or whether she just chose to ignore any thoughts other than justifying why she could stick to her plans regardless of consequences.
I think I feel similar to the way you do regarding evil and redemption when it comes to the overall picture of life but as an individual I don't know that I really have any judgement towards the extreme acts of others. I used to but I have slowly stopped caring over the years. I have values that I follow but I have given up on holding others to my own standards. Some may but many will not and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Getting angry and judging people as garbage won't get me anywhere. I am empathetic toward people who do evil deeds. Apathy towards others only closes the mind. I put myself in their shoes in the hopes that I will learn something about humanity and myself. I don't sympathize with acts of evil though.
Most people probably believe in redemption. Some don't, but I think most peoples views are based off of their judgements of others not about the core definition of good and evil. A man who kills someone is bad. A man who kills two is even worse. But is he? He is the same man he was when he killed the first person. No different. It's worse to you that he killed more because another life was lost but to him I doubt it really matters. Most serial killers probably don't even know how many people they have killed. They do evil deeds or deeds that most people would label as evil but if they tried to redeem themselves it wouldn't really matter to anyone else. Others might acknowledge that they are sorry and are trying harder to do good but the fact of the matter is they will always be a murderer. Some people can forgive crimes and some can't. I guess it just depends on who you are but you can never wash the crime away. There is a reason we have minds.
If you lose your virginity before marriage there is no getting it back. It doesn't matter if you are sorry you did it or continued to do it everyday for the rest of your life. You failed to live up to a moral value. In the overarching view of the world. I think it would be good to recognize when you have made a mistake and try to do better but when it comes right down to it. You either did live up to a standard or you didn't.
Take Hitler for example, do you think he really cared after the first week of killing? Do you think he was more evil after the first month than he was the first week? Would it really matter to anyone if he tried to redeem himself? If he stopped the killing than many lives would be saved and people would be grateful but would the man be considered any less evil than he is currently? Would he be any less of a monster if he had only killed half as many? After a point, I have to admit that I don't think I really care even when I am judging others. Presently my mind just passes over him and moves on. Genghis Khan and Vlad the Impaler, ect. I don't even want to go there.
To Caelar's family I would assume killing one honorable man was so unforgivable in their eyes that they don't even have a scale that counts to two. It all comes down to how extreme your beliefs are and how crazy your mind is. People have justified things in their minds that I can't even begin to imagine what is wrong with them.
Hitting the bottom of the bottle. No hope left, completely devoid of morals and completely numb to the world. It may sound unrealistic but people go there. They go there when they shoot up schools and kill themselves. We see it on the tele everyday. I believe Caelar went there but she had one goal that she hung onto and decided to follow through knowing that it would probably result in her burning in hell.
REMEMBER EVERYONE SMILE, THIS IS LIKE SOME GREAT FANTASY!
Personally I was glad to see Irenicus in SOD but I agree with some others on this board that he was overused. I think Beamdog probably wanted to give David as much meat as possible because they are fans and respect him. Everyone has an opinion on how the game could be better for them and it's easy to pick over the game and say what you would change.
In my eyes I think the first meeting with the hooded man would have been much more cool if it happened on the streets of Baldur's Gate. He looks like a beggar or a refuge. I think the scene with him getting angry at the evil mage was well done and I would keep that. Other than that, I would have him appear in the jail cell with your character when he wakes up and the end. Have him let you know that what you were afraid of and tried to kill in Dragonspear castle wasn't a monster, it was you. He would then open your cell, hand you a potion of invisibility, and tell you where to find the soul taker dagger as a final test of your worth before teleporting away. You would escape through the sewers and when you go to the dagger's location you get jumped and move on to BG2. He would have two appearances in the game and one out of game appearance for the audience and that is all.
I am not a big fan of the dream sequences but these are personal preferences. Overall I think Beamdog did a good job and I enjoyed the story even if I would have done some things differently if I were writing it. It's probably a good thing I am not though because I am no professional writer.
I have some other thoughts about the overarching messages that the trilogy has about the topic of murder and I was thinking of talking about the effects that SOD, the EE's and even mods like Tutu and Trilogy have had on the second game's impact but I have aready typed way too much and have other things I need to do tonight.
It would be cool if we could get a bunch of people in here talking about the various aspects of the game. This forum has been slow lately.
Having gotten that out of the way, I have to remember that D&D has objectified morality in the alignment system and has gods as factually acknowledged beings in the universe. So really comparisons between real world morality and religion to that of D&D games is never going to be a 1:1 analogy.
In the real world, there is no scale of morality which we can use to judge how "evil" a person is. I also don't believe in absolute good or evil, so it's hard to put those labels on people. I'm more likely to judge someone based on their actions and opinions today than try to tally up their entire moral history. If someone shows genuine remorse and acts to correct past mistakes, that's better than someone who did good deeds all of their life for praise and attention and therefore feels they should be allowed some moral lapses every once and a while as a reward. There's a theory about "moral balancing" where people will internally keep track of what they consider good and bad deeds and justify doing something bad as a "reward" for the good deeds that they have done.
Kind of off topic here. In regards to Caelar, I don't remember all of the details of her backstory, but if her family was willing to kick her out for an unintentional mistake she committed when she was a child, they are just as much to blame for how she turned out as she is. Any person who claims to be Good with a capital G should never abandon someone who made an honest mistake, regardless of the consequences, and especially one so vulnerable. It was their duty to warn her not to explore where she shouldn't and to protect her from the consequences. If I were a DM in that story, I would have had any of Caelar's family members who were paladins fall for kicking her out.
It could actually have been a pretty cool twist: the taint's influence grows and Bhaal starts to be able to exert some influence even outside the dreams. The hooded man would have been an hallucination and Charname would have killed Skie for real.
*apart from Elminster perhaps, but he waits until he has lost interest before getting involved.
Also, regarding That's at least debateable, but out of scope. Also redemption is a christian concept, which therefore can not be universally applied.
But I agree, that the perception of other people change.
Famous quote:
Kill one man and you are a murderer.
Kill one million and you are a conqueror.
Kill everyone and you are God.
(Hello ToB
Also, the Hitler analogy is really flawed. It's often used to describe some supposed "Incarnation of evil", but that's highly misleading and doesn't help understanding how all of that was possible. But again, that's out of scope here.
Redemption may be of Christian origin but so is the sanctity of marriage. I am not religious and I don't care if you or Vbbibi is. He believes in redemption and not in the sanctity of marriage. They are both moral values regardless of your opinion of them or what faith or human mind conceptualized them. Weather you agree with them and live your life by them are based on your opinions of them. That is really all there is too it.
As far as I can tell marriage was a tool used by Christianity to push people to be responsible before having kids. Having kids responsibly and raising them responsibly is a moral value to me personally but I see marriage as a piece of paper. Marriage was established at a time when organized society was more chaotic than it is now. I wouldn't be surpassed if 3 out every 4 kids that are born today are probably born to irresponsible people that have a moral obligation to raise their kids responsibly. I think statistically 2 out of every 3 marriages fail these days so I would say the purpose of marriage failed but my view of marriage was never the point.
It's not about my views on marriage or evil. I simply used the sanctity of marriage as a point to show that you cannot redeem yourself in that situation. You either lived up to that moral value or you failed at it. Both points were within the scope of the conversation in my opinion. I was talking about making a mistake and being unable to go back once you failed to live up to a moral value. Some people don't think it is a moral value to live and let live. Some think they have a moral responsibility to kill anyone that doesn't believe what they do because the world will become overrun with heathens. The human mind is a chaotic slop. I figure Caelar failed to live up to the moral standards of her family. Mistake or no, they were probably very strong in their beliefs and there was no turning back time or redemption in they're eyes(weather we agree with them or not is not important.) I was told at the camp when I asked about info on Caelar that her family considered both her and her uncle to have been lost in the incident even though she survived.
EDIT:
I think we should get back on topic about the game and review. I don't care if you guys are religious or how you live your lives and I am not trying to preach my own beliefs. I was trying to pose questions that would spark conversation but it took us off topic so my bad. lets just move on.
I think I understand, what you want to say with the marriage/redemption/evil part and I agree to some extend, but at the same time I think it's not that "simple". That's why I think pursuing this further would be out of scope of the topic.
Religion is philosophy for the mediocre mind. Religious people do not need reason or arguments, because they...believe. That's partly why I object using terms which stem from christianity.
So to come back to Irenicus: He has no knowledge of the slayer, or does he?
As for why he turns up at the Ducal Palace, why not? He can go anywhere he likes, and he wants to prompt the Bhaalspawn into a course of action which will cause Bhaal's essence to grow stronger, as well as pit his two most promising test subjects directly against each other.
Why does Elminster appear in BG1? Is it actually Elminster, or is it Irenicus in disguise?
THAT'S what I keep saying: SoD Irenicus acts like Bhaal and this is jarring.
But dreams occupy mental space, not physical. Irenicus might appear as Bhaal in a dream, or Bhaal might appear as Irenicus. It's not up to them, how they appear is determined by the subconscious of the dreamer. The Dreamer could easily confuse one invading presence with another.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say with your second paragraph but the way things work in BG is simple: Bhaalspawns need to die so their father can revive. Bhaalspawns who succumb to the taint tend to die faster. Ergo, Bhaal influences them in their dreams thanks to the taint by picking in their memories what he thinks can be useful. He does this to everyone: to Charname, to Sarevok, to Imoen and to that unnamed Fat Man Bhaalspawn who appear in the Pocketplane.
You're grasping at straws darling.
If you question him about it in BG2, he doesn't understand what you're talking about.
So clearly, Irenicus never tried to influence/observe your dreams. He has no idea what the mark of Papa Bhaal does to CHARNAME.
Also, here is the line, I mentioned above:
Bodhi tells me you have exhibited a... transformation. With your will slowly fading, perhaps the essence of Bhaal will rise to take you. That would be a sight, I am sure.
Perhaps and would be are the keywords. He is still mocking CHARNAME, he has no idea what power CHARNAME is able to invoke.
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And we even have a, while not pretty, straightforward explanation for this, from Andrew Foley no less: Irenicus was not written into the game not from the beginning.
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For the Elminster part, one should not forget, that this game was released when you paid for Internetaccess by the minute or MB. It was a smart decision to include a "guide". I never heard of AD&D before, therefore all those Characters meant nothing to me. Same with Drizzt, it's an ingame tool to help you beat the game and progress with the story, with the added benefit of fanservice.
I have another question for you guys. What did you think about the green dragon in SOD? Do you think the party is high enough level? How was the strategy and challenge of the battle to you? Does the presence of the green dragon weaken the epic encounter in BG2 when you meet your first dragon? Do you think they should have included it or not?
Also, What difficulty have you played SOD on and what character class did you use? Are you satisfied with the challenge of the game and why?
Personally, I played through my first time with a Fighter/Mage. I played on insane difficulty with SCS. I found the game to be harder than the original game. Tales of the sword coast is pretty difficult with SCS but I felt that my tactics had to be switched up to utilize regular wand usage. I was using 3 to 6 wands at a time on many fights in SOD because of the large enemy spawns that occur on insane difficulty.
The green dragon could be killed in a single round if you use two wands of frost and a wand of heavens combined with the ring you get from the red wizards and a bow shot from Corwin. It would kill the dragon so fast that none of the drakes would even spawn. The wand of frost was changed in Baldur's Gate 2 so that it worked on groups rather than deal massive damage to singular enemies. Having access to multiple wands of frost from the original BG is very OP in my opinion. It can destroy loot so you have to be careful but it can really put the hurt on singular enemies especially if you use more than one at a time.