Viccy-Romance: Makes sense for goog-aligned Chars???
Baldurspawn
Member Posts: 66
Suffering from constant Rerolleritis, I throw one question after the other in here ^^ ...till I am finally decided x'D
Always wondered if Viconia's romance makes any sense for a good aligned Charname? Maybe even lawful?
Never played that far with her (always being a good guy), but I don't necessarily want to play Jaheira's romance a third time (even though it's first time Ascension) and Aerie once was enough for a lifetime and the new ones aren't that interesting to begin with (and short). ^^
So, yeah, question
Always wondered if Viconia's romance makes any sense for a good aligned Charname? Maybe even lawful?
Never played that far with her (always being a good guy), but I don't necessarily want to play Jaheira's romance a third time (even though it's first time Ascension) and Aerie once was enough for a lifetime and the new ones aren't that interesting to begin with (and short). ^^
So, yeah, question
1
Comments
As long as your PC has an INT/WIS score above 10, your alignment doesn't matter. He should be able to figure out that "hard" doesn't even begin to describe a life like Viconia's, and that's why she acts the way she does. If you keep at it though she does begin to accept that it might be worth it to trust at least one other person, and that's basically what the "good" side of her romance is all about.
My very first playthrough, she was killed by Keldorn (with Carsomyr 2HKOed)... LG Anomen didn't care about what was happening next to him for some reason xD
And I know Mazzy hates Viccy, so that would be an interesting combo 3:)
neera's romace atlest in sod was rather sweet have not done her bg2 one yet.
Still not decided... will probably just try both of them together and see what strikes my fancy ^^
In fact, my only complaint about Viconia is that she will leave the party if their reputation becomes too great. While this might make some sense for some of the evil NPCs, it never really felt right for Viconia. Sure, she might think her companions are complete idiots for running around helping others instead of looking out for themselves, but she's both wise enough and enough of a survivor to recognize that building a heroic reputation may very well be her only realistic means of long-term survival on the surface world, at least in any kind of comfort and safety. Her leaving at high rep just seems kind of counter to the idea that she can be led from the path of evil, as she clearly can during the romance.
To that end, a player character of any alignment would likely understand that dark elves are evil, but still perceive Viconia differently.
She is not a slave bound to do evil deeds, she didn't even sell her soul to a demon or something. She turned her back to Lolth and then instead picked Shar because she chose to. She was not forced. There are quite a few other deities available to runaway drow, some of them even of good alignment. Out of the ashes into the flames indeed.
Viconia is never denied spells which means she has the full backing of her god which tells you all you need to know about her. That woman is wicked, in all the bad ways. I do not think the game gives you enough clues to believe otherwise, at least not until ToB and fully romanced.
Shar is the greater goddess of darkness, loss and secrets. I think it's pretty obvious why Viconia would pick her after losing favor with Lolth, and why Shar would accept being Viconia's patron (powerful drow priestess: check, loss: check, darkness:check, secrets:check). There is precedent for deities taking on the clergy of other deities with similar portfolios, especially if the priest and the deity share a strong connection.
It is never revealed if Viconia was ever a part of the "let's-rule-the-world-using-darkness" project the Sharrans have going. In any case the Sharran faith is not a particularly united one, and there's even a "good" order of Sharrans who devote themselves to helping other people overcome loss.
Neera's romance is pretty great in the sense of what I look for in a video game relationship (someone who is flawed and interesting and has an existence beyond my PC), but if you find her obnoxious rather than entertaining, it'll probably grate on you (though her priorities do shift from BG1 to SoD to BG2). She notably can do something significantly more evil than Viccy ever does in an optional encounter in BG1.
Viconia has 16 intelligence and 18 wisdom iirc. Considering her experiences over however many centuries she's been alive when she was ruthlessly competing with her sisters in House DeVir and sacrificing surfacers to Lolth, not to mention the societally ingrained cruel outlook of drow culture AND the fact she's now a complete outsider on the surfacer, she tempers her evil outlook with wisdom and intelligence.
Overt acts of evil are likely to more attention to her than any of the other evil npcs.
She's not stupid. She's aware of the outcomes of her actions. The loss element of Shar's portfolio and doctrine, when introduced to this, the sum of her experiences and outlook... They seem to have set her on a transition to neutrality/uncertainty (whilst still being evil, if only in outlook).
I think that's why a romance with her, where the mainchar is the catalyst for that change in her outlook is satisfying to see.
Just to reiterate on my view, just because you're evil you're not compelled to reveal you are at every moment so as to convince an audience you are, but I suppose from a narrative point of view, it would have been nice if Viconia did the odd thing here or there.
I like the whole notion that she could have been a more pronounced yet subtle & corruptive influence angle, where she (or any of the other evil npcs for that matter) could have proposed evil options to solve quests - or encouraged you to do evil acts if your character was good/neutral.
Interesting topic.
But I get you; that's a viable character interpretation. It's just one supported by a desire to infer something which reconciles Viconia's behaviour with her alignment, rather than something actually supported by the character's actions or words directly (unless there's something in her romance that directly supports it). Nothing wrong with that, it's pretty much the same thing I was doing when rationalising the Dorn/Viccy conversation awhile back. I agree that would be interesting, and that evil characters shouldn't be constantly proving their evil bonafides, but I also think an evil-aligned character should be reasonably demonstrative that they are (either by overall behaviour or by specific choices in situations), and not merely have it as an Informed Ability (I also think this about good-aligned characters, and think most characters should be flavours of neutral).
Admittedly, I mostly just hate that Viccy's clearly set up for any good-aligned character to take her in, has a running plot theme where she is unfairly hated and persecuted for what she is, yet still complains and leaves at high reputation.