I vote for Viconia. She's one of the few that truly changes to suit their partner. And as I recall some of her romance is actually being strong enough to stand up to her and be her equal. Very fitting of a Paladin. As a Paladin it can also touch on redeeming and turning others from evil rather than simply hating or shunning them.
Also. The "abusive" part as many put it is mostly towards the earlier stages of the relationship when she is pushing you away from her and trying not to make attachements as much as she's letting you get closer to her.
If your Charisma is quite high. specially over 18-19 then her chance of leaving you is low. It gets lower the higher your charisma gets so it's possible to have a 20rep and have Viconia in the party.
This is just one use of the so called dumpstat in so many players eyes in that with certain banter exceptions it becomes a whole lot easier to hold together multi-alignment parties fairly well.
I vote for Viconia. She's one of the few that truly changes to suit their partner. And as I recall some of her romance is actually being strong enough to stand up to her and be her equal. Very fitting of a Paladin. As a Paladin it can also touch on redeeming and turning others from evil rather than simply hating or shunning them.
Also. The "abusive" part as many put it is mostly towards the earlier stages of the relationship when she is pushing you away from her and trying not to make attachements as much as she's letting you get closer to her.
If your Charisma is quite high. specially over 18-19 then her chance of leaving you is low. It gets lower the higher your charisma gets so it's possible to have a 20rep and have Viconia in the party.
I agree. I have often noted that Vicky stays with my party at rep 20 if she is being Romanced, and on another forum have read that others had experienced the same thing. But it just might be that I usually play a Paladin with 18 CHA
I'm sorry what? Moralistic about sex? Aerie breaks off the romance because she rushed into a sexual relationship and realized after the fact that she wasn't ready. She doesn't even blame charname, fully admitting it was her choice and she pushed herself too far too quickly. There is nothing moralistic about that, some people aren't casual about sex, and some people are. I see nothing in the game that comments about or even hints that sex is in any way bad.
I'm referring to the heavy-handed Madonna/whore overtones in the contrast between Good Aerie, Evil Viconia, and their respective views on (and reactions to) sex. They might as well be virtual avatars of the complex.
Edit: Not just when you have sex with them. Their reactions to the Phaere storyline are classic Madonna/whore, while Jahiera again manages to carve out a functional middle-ground.
Their reactions are different, but that dies not mean there is a moral determination between them.
Again, I'm not saying Aerie and Viconia, the individual characters, are making a moral determination. I'm saying the developers, looking at the entire work as a whole, are implying a moral determination.
Here's an example. Here are all of the vanilla SoA characters by alignment, as well as a brief description of their personal quest.
Good: Imoen- none Minsc- none Aerie- none Nalie- rescue her family / rescue her from family rivals Keldorn- help him with family troubles Valygar- deal with a family member gone rogue Mazzy- help a poisoned family member
Neutral: Jahiera- none Yoshimo- none Anomen- deal with / avenge family members Jan- help an old love Haer'Dalis- help his friends Cernd- rescue his family
Evil: Korgan- get treasure Edwin- get treasure Viconia- none
(Note: BG canon implies a Good charname, and his "personal quest" could be considered to be "rescue Imoen", which fits neatly under the "rescue family" umbrella.)
Now, obviously there's a bit of interpretation involved here. We could say that the Planar Sphere and De'Arnise Keep aren't really personal quests (since you can do them without the character in the party), or we could consider the Galverey quests part of Jahiera's line. For what it's worth, I sorted them like I did because you can get the Galverey quest without ever speaking to Jahiera, but you can't get De'Arnise Keep or Planar Sphere without speaking to Nalia and Valygar.
But regardless of how you break it down, there's a very clear trend here. Good and Neutral people have quests that involve helping other people, especially family members or close approximations. Evil people have quests that involve personally enriching themselves.
What could we conclude from this trend? It looks to me like the developers are suggesting that altruism and loyalty are "good" traits and selfishness is an "evil" trait. And they're suggesting this without ever requiring Mazzy to go on a monologue about how great she is for saving her sister, or Korgan to twirl his mustache and monologue about the primacy of self-enrichment.
If a certain trait or behavior is assigned exclusively or primarily to good characters, and the opposite trait or behavior is assigned exclusively or primarily to evil characters, then that's an implicit suggestion that the former trait is "good", (or at least primarily falling under the domain of goodness), and the latter trait is "evil", (or falling primarily under the domain thereof).
You can't map two characters so neatly to the Madonna/whore dichotomy- with the Good character standing in as the stereotypical Madonna and the Evil character standing in as the stereotypical whore- without it implying value judgments of some sort. There's too much cultural baggage attached to those particular archetypes to just shrug it all off. In much the same way that you can't create a game where a hero goes off to rescue a captured princess without assuming all the cultural baggage that goes along with that, too.
(Now, if they'd made Viconia the Madonna and Aerie the whore, that would have been a really neat bit of narrative subversion.)
I'm sorry what? Moralistic about sex? Aerie breaks off the romance because she rushed into a sexual relationship and realized after the fact that she wasn't ready. She doesn't even blame charname, fully admitting it was her choice and she pushed herself too far too quickly. There is nothing moralistic about that, some people aren't casual about sex, and some people are. I see nothing in the game that comments about or even hints that sex is in any way bad.
I'm referring to the heavy-handed Madonna/whore overtones in the contrast between Good Aerie, Evil Viconia, and their respective views on (and reactions to) sex. They might as well be virtual avatars of the complex.
Edit: Not just when you have sex with them. Their reactions to the Phaere storyline are classic Madonna/whore, while Jahiera again manages to carve out a functional middle-ground.
Their reactions are different, but that dies not mean there is a moral determination between them.
Again, I'm not saying Aerie and Viconia, the individual characters, are making a moral determination. I'm saying the developers, looking at the entire work as a whole, are implying a moral determination.
Here's an example. Here are all of the vanilla SoA characters by alignment, as well as a brief description of their personal quest.
Good: Imoen- none Minsc- none Aerie- none Nalie- rescue her family / rescue her from family rivals Keldorn- help him with family troubles Valygar- deal with a family member gone rogue Mazzy- help a poisoned family member
Neutral: Jahiera- none Yoshimo- none Anomen- deal with / avenge family members Jan- help an old love Haer'Dalis- help his friends Cernd- rescue his family
Evil: Korgan- get treasure Edwin- get treasure Viconia- none
(Note: BG canon implies a Good charname, and his "personal quest" could be considered to be "rescue Imoen", which fits neatly under the "rescue family" umbrella.)
Now, obviously there's a bit of interpretation involved here. We could say that the Planar Sphere and De'Arnise Keep aren't really personal quests (since you can do them without the character in the party), or we could consider the Galverey quests part of Jahiera's line. For what it's worth, I sorted them like I did because you can get the Galverey quest without ever speaking to Jahiera, but you can't get De'Arnise Keep or Planar Sphere without speaking to Nalia and Valygar.
But regardless of how you break it down, there's a very clear trend here. Good and Neutral people have quests that involve helping other people, especially family members or close approximations. Evil people have quests that involve personally enriching themselves.
What could we conclude from this trend? It looks to me like the developers are suggesting that altruism and loyalty are "good" traits and selfishness is an "evil" trait. And they're suggesting this without ever requiring Mazzy to go on a monologue about how great she is for saving her sister, or Korgan to twirl his mustache and monologue about the primacy of self-enrichment.
If a certain trait or behavior is assigned exclusively or primarily to good characters, and the opposite trait or behavior is assigned exclusively or primarily to evil characters, then that's an implicit suggestion that the former trait is "good", (or at least primarily falling under the domain of goodness), and the latter trait is "evil", (or falling primarily under the domain thereof).
You can't map two characters so neatly to the Madonna/whore dichotomy- with the Good character standing in as the stereotypical Madonna and the Evil character standing in as the stereotypical whore- without it implying value judgments of some sort. There's too much cultural baggage attached to those particular archetypes to just shrug it all off. In much the same way that you can't create a game where a hero goes off to rescue a captured princess without assuming all the cultural baggage that goes along with that, too.
(Now, if they'd made Viconia the Madonna and Aerie the whore, that would have been a really neat bit of narrative subversion.)
If that is true, then the developers are also saying that gnomes elves and halfings=evil and dwarves=evil. Characters are allowed to have characteriestics that don't inform a good evil dichotomy.
In the fic "Game of Cards", and I do get that some people don't like fanfics because reasons, Aerie is a follower of Loviatar.
Now that is an interesting twist, the whole "wings" thing is self inflicted as the price paid for power from Loviatar and she is truly evil. But she looks and acts like an angel in public.
BG would have been better if there had been more of that subversiveness rather than the obvious good/evil divide.
Actually, I'm pretty sure "altruism" *is* good and egoism *is* evil.
In fact, in the realms there are two kinds of evil and good. "Elemental" good/evil, which involves stuff like gods, solars, devils etc. and "personal" evil, which mostly boils down to, well, altruism vs egoism.
In that vein, Viconia is NE because she furthers the work of an evil god (and thus the metaphysical evil) even though she is not really that much of a self-centered egoist.
Jaheira is TN because she works towards the goal of metaphysical neutrality, even though she is good-natured.
But both are divine spellcasters, which means that they put the metaphysical alignment ofer their personal alignment. It also means that Vicky should lose her spells because of the romance, because of Shars dogma..
On the other hand wh have people like Imoen, Jan or Edwin. They do not care for any divine agendas, but follow their hearts.. which is good-hearted, undecided and self-centered respectly. ^^
If that is true, then the developers are also saying that gnomes elves and halfings=evil and dwarves=evil. Characters are allowed to have characteriestics that don't inform a good evil dichotomy.
I don't follow the logical leap you're making between what I'm saying and "gnomes, elves, halfings, and dwarves are evil". I'll need you to walk me through that one.
Anyway, characters *are* allowed to have characteristics that don't inform the good/evil dichotomy. Every character is an individual with individual traits. But when traits become shared widely enough among a certain group, those traits become associated with that group.
Not all dwarves are hardy and love gold, but enough of them do that we begin to say those are dwarvish traits. Not all halflings hate adventure, (see: Mazzy), but enough do that the existence of an occasional Mazzy doesn't change the fact that "hates adventuring" is generally considered a halfling trait.
These implicitly understood racial traits date back to Tolkien and have become the lingua franca of high fantasy, enough so that if a writer wants to deviate from them, they must do so explicitly or else the audience will assume they're still in effect. Even mild support will reinforce them. If a book has one dwarf in the entire story and that dwarf loves gold, everyone will assume that dwarves in that fantasy setting are universally gold-loving, (and probably that they're hardy, rowdy, etc.), unless the writer explicitly says otherwise.
Similarly, if I am writing romances in a culture that has been steeped in the Madonna/whore dichotomy for centuries, (arguably millennia), and I write a pair of archetypes that perfectly map to that existing dichotomy, I am reinforcing it. I might not consciously be doing it, that may not be my intention. But my work cannot be divorced from the environment in which it was created.
If you really want to see this in action, read some really old Sci Fi, maybe Edgar Rice Burroughs or E.E. Smith, and notice how they write their heroines. All of their writing will feel a bit old-fashioned and it might be hard to put your finger on why. And that's largely just the fact that they're reinforcing the social mores of the timeperiod in which they were writing, including... yes... making all of their heroines textbook Madonnas.
If you want to see a counterpoint to this, read some old Marvel comics from the '60s and notice how they're deliberately subverting common tropes and underminding old-fashioned social mores. (Actually, read any Marvel ever, because Marvel's entire raison d'être is essentially subverting common tropes and undermining old-fashioned social mores.)
Anyway, given the historical context, creating one romantic interest who is wanton and sensual and evil and a second romantic interest who is pure and chaste and good implicitly endorses the link between wantonness and sensuality and evilness and the link between purity and chastity and goodness.
I doubt the developers were doing it consciously, to be honest. They're a product of their society. I think it's much more likely that they simply internalized the stereotypes and, when writing Aerie and Viconia, they came easily to mind. Just like I don't think horror movie writers were intentionally suggesting sex was evil by immediately killing off any female character who had it while ensuring that the virgin survived to the end. It was just the stereotype they were most familiar with. But nevertheless they were guilty of perpetuating that steroetype, of reinforcing that association.
So yes, I believe that any work in which the good characters are pure and chaste and the evil characters are sensual and wanton, (or any work in which dire consequences immediately follow sex, even if not causally linked, while chastity is rewarded-- again, with or without a causal link), is "moralizing about sex". I stand behind that.
Actually, I'm pretty sure "altruism" *is* good and egoism *is* evil.
I agree, (well, beyond any philosophical quibbling about the true nature of "good" and "evil"). I deliberately picked an example of characteristics that were pretty unambiguous to illustrate how clearly they mapped. "Oh hey look, all good characters exhibit (obviously good trait) while all evil characters exhibit (obviously evil trait). Weird how that worked out!"
From there, it's just a matter of substituting "chastity" for "altruism" and "sensuality" for "egoism" and oh hey look at that, the pattern holds.
@SomeSort Okay. If I understood your post about chastity=good and promiscuous=evil, your example for why was that the good npcs are all selflessly motivated and that all the evil are selfishly motivated. Using this as a template with the idea that all the good share themes and all the evil share themes, then Aerie and Viconia's characteristics, according to the pattern laid out, inform another good/evil contrast. Granted this is how I saw your example, if I'm wrong please correct me.
What I did was take that same example and apply to broader characteristics. For example, Gnomes, Elves, half-elves, and halflings are all represented as good. And the only Dwarven NPC is evil. SO by the pattern you laid out, the races also share the same dichotomy. The idea that these races are only the alignments shown in absurd, therefore your example is not rock solid.
I resist the idea that sexuality is used for a moral dichotomy because there is no point in the game that comments on the nature of it. You can sleep with prostitutes and not lose rep, therefore it is not an evil action as far as the game is concerned. Yes, they are part of the CC's 'selective' services, but only the slave fights is shown as being evil, the companion services are still available after Hendak takes control of the CC. If the devs had taken a moral stance with sexuality, it would show up in other areas of the game. How the NPCs treat sex is not seen as any more an example of evil than their races are, i.e. they aren't.
Bioware has never been big on latching onto those ideas of promiscuity=morality. That's something that is being placed on the game that they never really put there. They've prided themselves at times on offering things like same sex relationships in some of their games or simply making it a personal choice without reward or conflict about it.
You really can't see that "sexuality is used for a moral dichotomy" in BG2? It's practically Victorian in it's approach.
The outstanding example is the treatment of the Drow. Yes they are utterly evil but lets throw a load of sex in just to underline the point.
In this evil society, love is virtually outlawed and to emphasise that you get the Soulafein/Pharae story. And then no possible redemption for Pharae. Even after you are told explicitly that she was tortured far worse than Soulafein, suffered far more.
It's in Ust Nathar you get the "lust chambers". And you think that's a coincidence?
BG was actually far less uptight than BG2, you had the Undercellars and the Low Lantern. But BG2 went full on sexuality as a means of portraying evil.
@UnderstandMouseMagic Yes it is a coincidence. You have "lust chambers" in Athkatla too, does that mean the devs are saying all the inhabitants of Athkatla are evil? You are inferring something that is never implied.
the biggest difference in the "lust chambers" between Athkatla and Ust Natha is that in Athkatla they are primarily females used in such ways(with the possibilities of a male or two) And in Ust Natha it's primarily males. Slavery is common place in both cities as well. It's just that in Ust Natha it's open and in Athkatla its somewhat hidden. And unless you put the copper coronet under new management both locations use slaves for such behavior. Even those you find on the streets are indebted to the Thieves guild. It may not be as mentioned in BG1 but you can bet many of the ones that are around at night in Baldur's Gate are also likely indebted to the thieves guild there. With the few free agents possibly being found in Beregost or Nashkell. Places to small to have real oversight by thieving organizations.
BG was actually far less uptight than BG2, you had the Undercellars and the Low Lantern. But BG2 went full on sexuality as a means of portraying evil.
@UnderstandMouseMagic is there anything to suggest this other than the drow (whose society was taken from an existing fantasy setting, rather than being created as an example by Bioware)?
I can't immediately think of anything in the game suggesting that sex=evil. Aerie tends to be held up as a pure and good character, but that doesn't prevent her sleeping with the PC. Viconia can also be redeemed from her evil ways after sleeping with her (you can certainly say that is due to the wider romance, but my point is that sex is not something portrayed as having automatic evil consequences).
@SomeSort Okay. If I understood your post about chastity=good and promiscuous=evil, your example for why was that the good npcs are all selflessly motivated and that all the evil are selfishly motivated. Using this as a template with the idea that all the good share themes and all the evil share themes, then Aerie and Viconia's characteristics, according to the pattern laid out, inform another good/evil contrast. Granted this is how I saw your example, if I'm wrong please correct me.
What I did was take that same example and apply to broader characteristics. For example, Gnomes, Elves, half-elves, and halflings are all represented as good. And the only Dwarven NPC is evil. SO by the pattern you laid out, the races also share the same dichotomy. The idea that these races are only the alignments shown in absurd, therefore your example is not rock solid.
I resist the idea that sexuality is used for a moral dichotomy because there is no point in the game that comments on the nature of it. You can sleep with prostitutes and not lose rep, therefore it is not an evil action as far as the game is concerned. Yes, they are part of the CC's 'selective' services, but only the slave fights is shown as being evil, the companion services are still available after Hendak takes control of the CC. If the devs had taken a moral stance with sexuality, it would show up in other areas of the game. How the NPCs treat sex is not seen as any more an example of evil than their races are, i.e. they aren't.
It's not just that Aerie is one way and Aerie is good, and Viconia is another way and Viconia is evil. I mean, that's a sample size of one, which is silly. If we're accepting a sample size of one, we're going to reach weird conclusions like "All halflings want to be paladins". I'm saying that there's existing context, and Aerie/Viconia fit into this context. I'm saying there exists centuries of cultural stereotyping and if you create characters that adhere to those stereotypes, you are perpetuating those stereotypes.
Regarding Dwarves and Elves and whatnot, I mentioned that in my last post. High fantasy has racial stereotypes that harken back to Tolkien. Elves are long-lived, slender, aloof, and largely good. Dwarves are long-lived, stocky, short, and relatively neutral. Halflings are diminuative and fond of creature comforts.
If I write a novel that has three characters-- one elf, one dwarf, and one halfling-- and those three characters all possess those traits I listed... you'd naturally assume that *ALL* elves, dwarves, and halflings in my created universe possessed those traits, (or near enough). At this point, it's not a sample size of 1, it's a sample size of 1 + (every work of High Fantasy that has ever come before).
Similarly, if the devs write one romantic interest who is good and chaste and pure and a second romantic interest who is sensual and wanton and wicked, that's not a sample size of 1 each. That's a sample size of 1 + (all the history and tradition of the Madonna/whore complex).
As for why it doesn't show up in other areas of the game... again, this goes back to my horror movie analogy. Horror movies never say sex is bad. They just kill any woman who has it. The first time a horror film juxtaposes them, you don't read too much into it.
But when the 80th slasher film comes out, and the previous 79 slasher films have all had plots revolving around killing off all sexualized women until only the virginal "Final Girl" is left, and the 80th has two female characters and the promiscuous one gets killed early while the "pure" one survives... it's imputing a moral judgment.
(Horror movies themselves make this case far more forcefully than I can by intentionally deconstructing the trope. See: Scream and Cabin in the Woods.)
It's not a coincidence that the virgin survives if the virgin *always* survives. It's not a coincidence that the whore dies if the whore *always* dies. It's not a coincidence that the Dwarf is greedy if Dwarves are *always* greedy. It's not a coincidence that the elves are good if the elves are *always* good. It's not a coincidence that the "good" romantic option is pure and chaste if purity and chastity are *always* linked to goodness. It's not a coincidence that the "evil" romantic option is sensual and wanton if sensuality and wantonness are *always* linked to evil.
Now, I very much doubt that the developers *intended* to say that sex was bad. They were new to writing videogame romances, so they reached for whatever stereotypes were handy and threw them in without thinking. I'm sure a lot of horror movie directors did the same thing.
In fact, as evidence that the developers *didn't* intend to suggest sex was bad, we have every other Bioware game with possible romances ever, where they heard the criticism from BG2 and learned their lesson and didn't fall back onto timeworn stereotypes of sex as wicked.
And insofar as I blamed the developers for being moralistic about sex, that's not very fair. The developers, as far as I know, are probably not moralistic about sex. But Baldur's Gate 2, the video game they developed, 100% is.
Bioware has never been big on latching onto those ideas of promiscuity=morality. That's something that is being placed on the game that they never really put there. They've prided themselves at times on offering things like same sex relationships in some of their games or simply making it a personal choice without reward or conflict about it.
One interpretation: Bioware has never been big on latching onto those ideas of promiscuity = morality. Evidence: every single game that came after BG2.
Another interpretation: Bioware latched onto stereotypes equating promiscuity with morality in their first foray into NPC romances, learned from the reception and feedback, and in the future worked extra hard to make sure they didn't do it again, at times even working to subvert the trope entirely.
BG was actually far less uptight than BG2, you had the Undercellars and the Low Lantern. But BG2 went full on sexuality as a means of portraying evil.
@UnderstandMouseMagic is there anything to suggest this other than the drow (whose society was taken from an existing fantasy setting, rather than being created as an example by Bioware)?
I can't immediately think of anything in the game suggesting that sex=evil. Aerie tends to be held up as a pure and good character, but that doesn't prevent her sleeping with the PC. Viconia can also be redeemed from her evil ways after sleeping with her (you can certainly say that is due to the wider romance, but my point is that sex is not something portrayed as having automatic evil consequences).
The first time Aerie sleeps with you, (at her urging), she realizes what a mistake it was and breaks up with you immediately afterwards. You later get an opportunity to sleep with her without her leaving, but it's notable that she's the only romance partner who will get pregnant, reinforcing that for good girls, the purpose of sex is procreation.
The Phaere situation follows a similar script. The evil romantic partner is upset if you *don't* sleep with Phaere. The neutral romantic partner is upset that you slept with Phaere, but understands circumstances were difficult and can look past it. The good romantic partner dumps you immediately if you sleep with Phaere. That's a pretty clear continuum from Evil reveling in extraneous sex to Good refusing to tolerate it regardless of the circumstances.
Viconia can be redeemed from her evil ways if you show her what "true love" is, and one of the steps in her rehabilitation is refusing to have sex with her. (Also worth noting that Viconia is the only one of the possible romantic partners who died in her epilogue, which harkens back to the old horror movie trope.)
Beyond the four romantic partners, what examples of sex are there in BG2? There's the "back rooms" in the Copper Coronet. In it, you'll see two women fight to the death because a man had an affair. (There's a humorous echo to this with Carbos and Shenk in the bridge district.) You'll also find a child-murderer / teddybear-thief. You can sleep with the prostitutes, though if Jahiera is nearby she'll make it abundantly clear that this is not exactly a "morally neutral" option.
There's Lady Galvana's Festhall in Brynnlaw, a place so bad that there's no less than *two* quests revolving around helping a prostitute escape from there. Also in Brynnlaw you happen to see Cayia cheating on her husband. She's killed two minutes later, which is probably the clearest example in the game of sex being linked with a negative life outcome.
The lust chambers of Ust Natha have already been mentioned. "This race is super-evil, but to really reinforce that point, let's also make it hyper-sexualized. Because sexuality clearly signals evilness." @UnderstandMouseMagic nicely detailed how messed up Phaere is-- the lesson imparted to her was basically "you can't love because love is good and our kind is evil; instead you can have lots of random sex because our kind is evil and sex is what we do."
If Viconia and Valygar are in a party together and you talk to prostitutes, Viconia will joke about Valygar not being man enough to satisfy them until he snaps and kills her, which is another quick link between sexuality and negative life outcomes, with a good-aligned character having enough sense to know that murder is preferable to crude jabs.
There's Keldorn's wife, Lady Maria, whose affair is grounds for Keldorn to murder the other man and throw her in prison, if he's so inclined. (In fact, the dictates of his faith suggest that's exactly what he should do.) If you're feeling rather more merciful, you can have Keldorn forgive her and go back to her. (It goes without saying that she'll forgive Keldorn, because obviously completely neglecting your family for years is a far lesser sin than adultery.)
There's some really weird parallels between Lady Maria and Phaere, now that I think about it. Lady Maria was in trouble because she was supposed to be a Madonna and it turned out she was a whore. Phaere was in trouble because she was supposed to be a whore and it turned out she was a Madonna.
@SomeSort Note that Maria did not actually sleep with her partner during the affair. It is even stated that the other man was impotent and it was an affair of emotion.
The Phaere situation follows a similar script. The evil romantic partner is upset if you *don't* sleep with Phaere. The neutral romantic partner is upset that you slept with Phaere, but understands circumstances were difficult and can look past it. The good romantic partner dumps you immediately if you sleep with Phaere. That's a pretty clear continuum from Evil reveling in extraneous sex to Good refusing to tolerate it regardless of the circumstances.
Actually it can be just as easily argued in the situation of Phaere that the so called "good" romances are the most jealous. Jahiera in particular shows signs of a jealous streak in her romance when not having certain issues over the death of Khalid.
Aerie is pretty much just as bad considering if you have Haer'Dalis in your party things get turned into a love Triangle. To Keep the relationship you basically have to prove your love is only for her and it's Haer'Dalis that backs off on pursueing her. Not Aerie ending the growing relationship with him.
Viconia on the other hand is accepting that sleeping with Phaere can move forward what your trying to do in Ust Natha and protect you from angry reprisals to some extent and she's practical in several respects. With her typical mentality and nature. It makes sense that she does get upset that you don't take the safest and most useful route of sleeping with Phaere.
So the Phaere situation could just be as much considered as a matter of Romantic Idealism vs. Practicality as any so called sense of promiscuity being evil.
As for lady Maria. I never read this implication that it's best that he kill her. The whole thing read like stopping him and getting him to reconcile with her was the moral and good thing to do. Not letting him take jealous revenge on the other man. The implication that he could get away with it was more implied because Keldorn is noble born and so the law gives him allowances to not be punished for certain crimes under certain conditions.
The D'arnise and Roenall quests actually back up that idea that nobles follow a different set of rules and get away things that commoners wouldn't because of their station and influence.
@SomeSort Note that Maria did not actually sleep with her partner during the affair. It is even stated that the other man was impotent and it was an affair of emotion.
Which enforces even more what @SomeSort and myself is saying. So much so that I was going to mention that in my post but it got too long so deleted it.
Maria can't actually have an "affair", the writers didn't allow her to because they had gone so far down the "sex/evil" road. Keldorn in the setting created would have been justified in killing both, no dilemma whatsoever, without that information. And in the setting created, Keldorn would have been considered weak, a cuckhold, not an upstanding Paladin if he hadn't killed them both, and Maria too much of a whore to live. The lover being impotent allows an escape route not only for the NPC but the player as well from the trope.
If you look at that conversation between Keldorn/lover it really is very strange. The lover thinks Keldorn is going to kill him, Maria thinks Keldorn will kill him. And yet the lover makes a confession that he is impotent, why? The writers saw it as necessary for the story they were telling. Maria can spend all day, every day with the lover, that's forgivable, hell, he can even be a substitute father. But some hanky panky, that's a big no no. That would be evil.
@UnderstandMouseMagic Yes it is a coincidence. You have "lust chambers" in Athkatla too, does that mean the devs are saying all the inhabitants of Athkatla are evil? You are inferring something that is never implied.
What "lust chambers" are there in Athkatla? Do you mean the CC?
"Yes, they are part of the CC's 'selective' services, but only the slave fights is shown as being evil, the companion services are still available after Hendak takes control of the CC"
No they are not, all the prostitutes upstairs disappear when Hendak takes over.
There's a marked difference between BG and BG2. I'd put it down to BG2 attempting to appeal to a more widestream audience. BG got away with a lot in that respect in comparison. BG2 strikes me as being very influenced by North American sensibilities as opposed to the more European approach in BG (or to be exact UK influence). In BG it's all a bit slap and tickle, the prostitutes make jokes especially with their set phrases, "I've never been with a man", "Do you want to look at me diddies" ect.
Not saying it's not as sleazy as hell, but there is a less puritanical approach. But more "Carry On Baldurs Gate" with Sid James than "Last Tango in Nashkel" with Marlon Brando.
And they couldn't have been afraid of him killing them simply because of his temperament? Which is rather judgemental and unforgiving in various ways? Jealous husband isn't enough reason for you? Which does fit into Keldorn's traits quite well.
I'm sorry but I can't help but say that perhaps your reading way more into the whole issue than there really is. There is nothing in BG2 that suggests that Keldorn would be himself considered weak over the whole matter.
In fact the only thing that can really be construed from it all is that perhaps his noble name be besmirched by lack of faithfulness and impotence on the part of the other man would not actually lessen that. It would still be scandal amongst the Noble Crowd. And Might be seen as even more of a scandal that sex wasn't the reason behind it all. Simple lust can be considered momentary and easily forgotten, scandal of the moment rather than a sign of long term relationship problems that actually do exist.
Everything you say is correct, but the writers themselves still deemed it necessary to put in the "impotence" bit. Just as some NPC cannot use the massage service offered in the UN lust chambers.
What we are discussing here is the motivation behind what is presented as the finished product. Of course we are reading far too much into it, wouldn't be on this forum at all if all of us didn't do that to an extent. But since when has reading anything not relied on interpretation and reading between the lines? And what writer of any degree of competence wouldn't be aware of that?
So either the writers were so amateur they didn't even think of the overall impression they were presenting with the dialog choices/story choices they wrote.
Or they were aware of it and were trying to create a unified picture.
@SomeSort thanks for taking the time to respond to my earlier post so fully. I've never been particularly into role playing and have rarely used NPCs at all in recent years, so you're obviously far better informed than me about what they do in the game .
You've gone some way to convincing me that sex is not portrayed as morally neutral in BG2, though I still don't think there's a clear, consistent or strong message to that effect. To some extent I suspect that you're interpreting particular bits of information in ways that fit your existing template - but then we're all guilty of that .
The portrayal of Maria’s lover being impotent felt very deliberate to me. An effort to not only soften her “crime”, but also to give Keldorn more reason to show leniency. After all, their was no actual sex involved.
This felt a little silly to me. I don’t mind that a game world has archaic laws within the worlds setting. It was this effort to make it “not so bad” that felt out of place to me. Also it sort of took the sting out of the decision that Keldorn had to make. In the end, what decision did he have to make? Forgive her for having a close friend while he was away?
What I did was take that same example and apply to broader characteristics. For example, Gnomes, Elves, half-elves, and halflings are all represented as good.
Except for those halflings in the Planar Sphere! I was surprised Mazzy didn't have a comment about them. Oh, and Neb and Glynis are gnomes, And in BG there is one lone evil halfling in Gullykin, for get his name. Heh, I would call him Chaotic Stupid for when six armed, armored, and magical adventurers show up in his hovel, he gets out a vanilla short sword and threatens to kill them!
What I did was take that same example and apply to broader characteristics. For example, Gnomes, Elves, half-elves, and halflings are all represented as good.
Except for those halflings in the Planar Sphere! I was surprised Mazzy didn't have a comment about them. Oh, and Neb and Glynis are gnomes, And in BG there is one lone evil halfling in Gullykin, for get his name. Heh, I would call him Chaotic Stupid for when six armed, armored, and magical adventurers show up in his hovel, he gets out a vanilla short sword and threatens to kill them!
The template originally set forth focused on party NPCs, to stay with the example, I stuck to that.
@UnderstandMouseMagic "To some extent I suspect that you're interpreting particular bits of information in ways that fit your existing template" This right here, you are making some very large leaps to connect all this.
@Ravenslight Actually, that made it WORSE for me. It wasn't for superficial reasons, but a complete ursurpation of the relationship between couples.
" Actually, that made it WORSE for me. It wasn't for superficial reasons, but a complete ursurpation of the relationship between couples."
There's no suggestion made by the character that had he been able to "perform" he wouldn't have also taken over as father to the daughters, companion ect.
And "sex" isn't superficial in a relationship between couples. Maria is not going out banging anybody who looks her way which could be interpreted as superficial. What we are presented with is a long term alternative relationship because her husband doesn't ever come home. The only thing missing is the sex.
So if you accuse me of looking to fit things into an "existing template" that's fair enough, but what's your interpretation of why the writers included the "impotent" part?
Writers convey information, in a format as restricted as a computer game it's odd to add something that has no meaning other than what they thought was a good idea at the time. And I'm just not buying it as a reason.
As @Ravenslight says, it strikes her as unecessary and deliberate, same here.
@UnderstandMouseMagic "So if you accuse me of looking to fit things into an "existing template" that's fair enough, but what's your interpretation of why the writers included the "impotent" part?"
It was added because it shows a deeper betrayal. Long term relationships last because there is more to a healthy relationship than lust or physical attraction. The impotent line makes it unambiguously clear that this was more than an affair of lust, it was the wholesale replacement of a member of the family. It deepens Maria's betrayal because she fully replaced her husband. It also deepens Keldorn's abandonment of his family because he left such a large hole to be filled.
If you mean the betrayal that occurred on an emotional level, I would agree with you. The problem is that in this story the “broken law” was made such a focal part of the story. The emotional betrayal was just kind of skimmed over. But the author makes a big point of making sure that you know that no actual sex could have occurred.“Oh it’s not so bad as they never actually had sex.”
I would agree that the damage that can done to a relationship when one person develops true feelings for someone else can be greater than what is done with a simple sexual infidelity.
But the story focused on her breaking a law. Keldorn had to decide her fate because of the law that was broken. When all the facts are gathered, what law did she break? Again, it all just starts to break down for me at this point and starts to feel silly. Can you imagine how busy the forces of the law would be if they had to lock up anyone who ever had lustful or longing thoughts for another person?
Comments
Also. The "abusive" part as many put it is mostly towards the earlier stages of the relationship when she is pushing you away from her and trying not to make attachements as much as she's letting you get closer to her.
If your Charisma is quite high. specially over 18-19 then her chance of leaving you is low. It gets lower the higher your charisma gets so it's possible to have a 20rep and have Viconia in the party.
This is just one use of the so called dumpstat in so many players eyes in that with certain banter exceptions it becomes a whole lot easier to hold together multi-alignment parties fairly well.
Here's an example. Here are all of the vanilla SoA characters by alignment, as well as a brief description of their personal quest.
Good:
Imoen- none
Minsc- none
Aerie- none
Nalie- rescue her family / rescue her from family rivals
Keldorn- help him with family troubles
Valygar- deal with a family member gone rogue
Mazzy- help a poisoned family member
Neutral:
Jahiera- none
Yoshimo- none
Anomen- deal with / avenge family members
Jan- help an old love
Haer'Dalis- help his friends
Cernd- rescue his family
Evil:
Korgan- get treasure
Edwin- get treasure
Viconia- none
(Note: BG canon implies a Good charname, and his "personal quest" could be considered to be "rescue Imoen", which fits neatly under the "rescue family" umbrella.)
Now, obviously there's a bit of interpretation involved here. We could say that the Planar Sphere and De'Arnise Keep aren't really personal quests (since you can do them without the character in the party), or we could consider the Galverey quests part of Jahiera's line. For what it's worth, I sorted them like I did because you can get the Galverey quest without ever speaking to Jahiera, but you can't get De'Arnise Keep or Planar Sphere without speaking to Nalia and Valygar.
But regardless of how you break it down, there's a very clear trend here. Good and Neutral people have quests that involve helping other people, especially family members or close approximations. Evil people have quests that involve personally enriching themselves.
What could we conclude from this trend? It looks to me like the developers are suggesting that altruism and loyalty are "good" traits and selfishness is an "evil" trait. And they're suggesting this without ever requiring Mazzy to go on a monologue about how great she is for saving her sister, or Korgan to twirl his mustache and monologue about the primacy of self-enrichment.
If a certain trait or behavior is assigned exclusively or primarily to good characters, and the opposite trait or behavior is assigned exclusively or primarily to evil characters, then that's an implicit suggestion that the former trait is "good", (or at least primarily falling under the domain of goodness), and the latter trait is "evil", (or falling primarily under the domain thereof).
You can't map two characters so neatly to the Madonna/whore dichotomy- with the Good character standing in as the stereotypical Madonna and the Evil character standing in as the stereotypical whore- without it implying value judgments of some sort. There's too much cultural baggage attached to those particular archetypes to just shrug it all off. In much the same way that you can't create a game where a hero goes off to rescue a captured princess without assuming all the cultural baggage that goes along with that, too.
(Now, if they'd made Viconia the Madonna and Aerie the whore, that would have been a really neat bit of narrative subversion.)
In the fic "Game of Cards", and I do get that some people don't like fanfics because reasons, Aerie is a follower of Loviatar.
Now that is an interesting twist, the whole "wings" thing is self inflicted as the price paid for power from Loviatar and she is truly evil. But she looks and acts like an angel in public.
BG would have been better if there had been more of that subversiveness rather than the obvious good/evil divide.
In fact, in the realms there are two kinds of evil and good.
"Elemental" good/evil, which involves stuff like gods, solars, devils etc.
and "personal" evil, which mostly boils down to, well, altruism vs egoism.
In that vein, Viconia is NE because she furthers the work of an evil god (and thus the metaphysical evil) even though she is not really that much of a self-centered egoist.
Jaheira is TN because she works towards the goal of metaphysical neutrality, even though she is good-natured.
But both are divine spellcasters, which means that they put the metaphysical alignment ofer their personal alignment.
It also means that Vicky should lose her spells because of the romance, because of Shars dogma..
On the other hand wh have people like Imoen, Jan or Edwin. They do not care for any divine agendas, but follow their hearts.. which is good-hearted, undecided and self-centered respectly. ^^
Anyway, characters *are* allowed to have characteristics that don't inform the good/evil dichotomy. Every character is an individual with individual traits. But when traits become shared widely enough among a certain group, those traits become associated with that group.
Not all dwarves are hardy and love gold, but enough of them do that we begin to say those are dwarvish traits. Not all halflings hate adventure, (see: Mazzy), but enough do that the existence of an occasional Mazzy doesn't change the fact that "hates adventuring" is generally considered a halfling trait.
These implicitly understood racial traits date back to Tolkien and have become the lingua franca of high fantasy, enough so that if a writer wants to deviate from them, they must do so explicitly or else the audience will assume they're still in effect. Even mild support will reinforce them. If a book has one dwarf in the entire story and that dwarf loves gold, everyone will assume that dwarves in that fantasy setting are universally gold-loving, (and probably that they're hardy, rowdy, etc.), unless the writer explicitly says otherwise.
Similarly, if I am writing romances in a culture that has been steeped in the Madonna/whore dichotomy for centuries, (arguably millennia), and I write a pair of archetypes that perfectly map to that existing dichotomy, I am reinforcing it. I might not consciously be doing it, that may not be my intention. But my work cannot be divorced from the environment in which it was created.
If you really want to see this in action, read some really old Sci Fi, maybe Edgar Rice Burroughs or E.E. Smith, and notice how they write their heroines. All of their writing will feel a bit old-fashioned and it might be hard to put your finger on why. And that's largely just the fact that they're reinforcing the social mores of the timeperiod in which they were writing, including... yes... making all of their heroines textbook Madonnas.
If you want to see a counterpoint to this, read some old Marvel comics from the '60s and notice how they're deliberately subverting common tropes and underminding old-fashioned social mores. (Actually, read any Marvel ever, because Marvel's entire raison d'être is essentially subverting common tropes and undermining old-fashioned social mores.)
Anyway, given the historical context, creating one romantic interest who is wanton and sensual and evil and a second romantic interest who is pure and chaste and good implicitly endorses the link between wantonness and sensuality and evilness and the link between purity and chastity and goodness.
I doubt the developers were doing it consciously, to be honest. They're a product of their society. I think it's much more likely that they simply internalized the stereotypes and, when writing Aerie and Viconia, they came easily to mind. Just like I don't think horror movie writers were intentionally suggesting sex was evil by immediately killing off any female character who had it while ensuring that the virgin survived to the end. It was just the stereotype they were most familiar with. But nevertheless they were guilty of perpetuating that steroetype, of reinforcing that association.
So yes, I believe that any work in which the good characters are pure and chaste and the evil characters are sensual and wanton, (or any work in which dire consequences immediately follow sex, even if not causally linked, while chastity is rewarded-- again, with or without a causal link), is "moralizing about sex". I stand behind that.
From there, it's just a matter of substituting "chastity" for "altruism" and "sensuality" for "egoism" and oh hey look at that, the pattern holds.
What I did was take that same example and apply to broader characteristics. For example, Gnomes, Elves, half-elves, and halflings are all represented as good. And the only Dwarven NPC is evil. SO by the pattern you laid out, the races also share the same dichotomy. The idea that these races are only the alignments shown in absurd, therefore your example is not rock solid.
I resist the idea that sexuality is used for a moral dichotomy because there is no point in the game that comments on the nature of it. You can sleep with prostitutes and not lose rep, therefore it is not an evil action as far as the game is concerned. Yes, they are part of the CC's 'selective' services, but only the slave fights is shown as being evil, the companion services are still available after Hendak takes control of the CC. If the devs had taken a moral stance with sexuality, it would show up in other areas of the game. How the NPCs treat sex is not seen as any more an example of evil than their races are, i.e. they aren't.
You really can't see that "sexuality is used for a moral dichotomy" in BG2?
It's practically Victorian in it's approach.
The outstanding example is the treatment of the Drow.
Yes they are utterly evil but lets throw a load of sex in just to underline the point.
In this evil society, love is virtually outlawed and to emphasise that you get the Soulafein/Pharae story. And then no possible redemption for Pharae.
Even after you are told explicitly that she was tortured far worse than Soulafein, suffered far more.
It's in Ust Nathar you get the "lust chambers".
And you think that's a coincidence?
BG was actually far less uptight than BG2, you had the Undercellars and the Low Lantern. But BG2 went full on sexuality as a means of portraying evil.
I can't immediately think of anything in the game suggesting that sex=evil. Aerie tends to be held up as a pure and good character, but that doesn't prevent her sleeping with the PC. Viconia can also be redeemed from her evil ways after sleeping with her (you can certainly say that is due to the wider romance, but my point is that sex is not something portrayed as having automatic evil consequences).
Regarding Dwarves and Elves and whatnot, I mentioned that in my last post. High fantasy has racial stereotypes that harken back to Tolkien. Elves are long-lived, slender, aloof, and largely good. Dwarves are long-lived, stocky, short, and relatively neutral. Halflings are diminuative and fond of creature comforts.
If I write a novel that has three characters-- one elf, one dwarf, and one halfling-- and those three characters all possess those traits I listed... you'd naturally assume that *ALL* elves, dwarves, and halflings in my created universe possessed those traits, (or near enough). At this point, it's not a sample size of 1, it's a sample size of 1 + (every work of High Fantasy that has ever come before).
Similarly, if the devs write one romantic interest who is good and chaste and pure and a second romantic interest who is sensual and wanton and wicked, that's not a sample size of 1 each. That's a sample size of 1 + (all the history and tradition of the Madonna/whore complex).
As for why it doesn't show up in other areas of the game... again, this goes back to my horror movie analogy. Horror movies never say sex is bad. They just kill any woman who has it. The first time a horror film juxtaposes them, you don't read too much into it.
But when the 80th slasher film comes out, and the previous 79 slasher films have all had plots revolving around killing off all sexualized women until only the virginal "Final Girl" is left, and the 80th has two female characters and the promiscuous one gets killed early while the "pure" one survives... it's imputing a moral judgment.
(Horror movies themselves make this case far more forcefully than I can by intentionally deconstructing the trope. See: Scream and Cabin in the Woods.)
It's not a coincidence that the virgin survives if the virgin *always* survives. It's not a coincidence that the whore dies if the whore *always* dies. It's not a coincidence that the Dwarf is greedy if Dwarves are *always* greedy. It's not a coincidence that the elves are good if the elves are *always* good. It's not a coincidence that the "good" romantic option is pure and chaste if purity and chastity are *always* linked to goodness. It's not a coincidence that the "evil" romantic option is sensual and wanton if sensuality and wantonness are *always* linked to evil.
Now, I very much doubt that the developers *intended* to say that sex was bad. They were new to writing videogame romances, so they reached for whatever stereotypes were handy and threw them in without thinking. I'm sure a lot of horror movie directors did the same thing.
In fact, as evidence that the developers *didn't* intend to suggest sex was bad, we have every other Bioware game with possible romances ever, where they heard the criticism from BG2 and learned their lesson and didn't fall back onto timeworn stereotypes of sex as wicked.
And insofar as I blamed the developers for being moralistic about sex, that's not very fair. The developers, as far as I know, are probably not moralistic about sex. But Baldur's Gate 2, the video game they developed, 100% is.
Another interpretation: Bioware latched onto stereotypes equating promiscuity with morality in their first foray into NPC romances, learned from the reception and feedback, and in the future worked extra hard to make sure they didn't do it again, at times even working to subvert the trope entirely.
The Phaere situation follows a similar script. The evil romantic partner is upset if you *don't* sleep with Phaere. The neutral romantic partner is upset that you slept with Phaere, but understands circumstances were difficult and can look past it. The good romantic partner dumps you immediately if you sleep with Phaere. That's a pretty clear continuum from Evil reveling in extraneous sex to Good refusing to tolerate it regardless of the circumstances.
Viconia can be redeemed from her evil ways if you show her what "true love" is, and one of the steps in her rehabilitation is refusing to have sex with her. (Also worth noting that Viconia is the only one of the possible romantic partners who died in her epilogue, which harkens back to the old horror movie trope.)
Beyond the four romantic partners, what examples of sex are there in BG2? There's the "back rooms" in the Copper Coronet. In it, you'll see two women fight to the death because a man had an affair. (There's a humorous echo to this with Carbos and Shenk in the bridge district.) You'll also find a child-murderer / teddybear-thief. You can sleep with the prostitutes, though if Jahiera is nearby she'll make it abundantly clear that this is not exactly a "morally neutral" option.
There's Lady Galvana's Festhall in Brynnlaw, a place so bad that there's no less than *two* quests revolving around helping a prostitute escape from there. Also in Brynnlaw you happen to see Cayia cheating on her husband. She's killed two minutes later, which is probably the clearest example in the game of sex being linked with a negative life outcome.
The lust chambers of Ust Natha have already been mentioned. "This race is super-evil, but to really reinforce that point, let's also make it hyper-sexualized. Because sexuality clearly signals evilness." @UnderstandMouseMagic nicely detailed how messed up Phaere is-- the lesson imparted to her was basically "you can't love because love is good and our kind is evil; instead you can have lots of random sex because our kind is evil and sex is what we do."
If Viconia and Valygar are in a party together and you talk to prostitutes, Viconia will joke about Valygar not being man enough to satisfy them until he snaps and kills her, which is another quick link between sexuality and negative life outcomes, with a good-aligned character having enough sense to know that murder is preferable to crude jabs.
There's Keldorn's wife, Lady Maria, whose affair is grounds for Keldorn to murder the other man and throw her in prison, if he's so inclined. (In fact, the dictates of his faith suggest that's exactly what he should do.) If you're feeling rather more merciful, you can have Keldorn forgive her and go back to her. (It goes without saying that she'll forgive Keldorn, because obviously completely neglecting your family for years is a far lesser sin than adultery.)
There's some really weird parallels between Lady Maria and Phaere, now that I think about it. Lady Maria was in trouble because she was supposed to be a Madonna and it turned out she was a whore. Phaere was in trouble because she was supposed to be a whore and it turned out she was a Madonna.
Aerie is pretty much just as bad considering if you have Haer'Dalis in your party things get turned into a love Triangle. To Keep the relationship you basically have to prove your love is only for her and it's Haer'Dalis that backs off on pursueing her. Not Aerie ending the growing relationship with him.
Viconia on the other hand is accepting that sleeping with Phaere can move forward what your trying to do in Ust Natha and protect you from angry reprisals to some extent and she's practical in several respects. With her typical mentality and nature. It makes sense that she does get upset that you don't take the safest and most useful route of sleeping with Phaere.
So the Phaere situation could just be as much considered as a matter of Romantic Idealism vs. Practicality as any so called sense of promiscuity being evil.
As for lady Maria. I never read this implication that it's best that he kill her. The whole thing read like stopping him and getting him to reconcile with her was the moral and good thing to do. Not letting him take jealous revenge on the other man. The implication that he could get away with it was more implied because Keldorn is noble born and so the law gives him allowances to not be punished for certain crimes under certain conditions.
The D'arnise and Roenall quests actually back up that idea that nobles follow a different set of rules and get away things that commoners wouldn't because of their station and influence.
So much so that I was going to mention that in my post but it got too long so deleted it.
Maria can't actually have an "affair", the writers didn't allow her to because they had gone so far down the "sex/evil" road.
Keldorn in the setting created would have been justified in killing both, no dilemma whatsoever, without that information.
And in the setting created, Keldorn would have been considered weak, a cuckhold, not an upstanding Paladin if he hadn't killed them both, and Maria too much of a whore to live.
The lover being impotent allows an escape route not only for the NPC but the player as well from the trope.
If you look at that conversation between Keldorn/lover it really is very strange. The lover thinks Keldorn is going to kill him, Maria thinks Keldorn will kill him. And yet the lover makes a confession that he is impotent, why?
The writers saw it as necessary for the story they were telling. Maria can spend all day, every day with the lover, that's forgivable, hell, he can even be a substitute father. But some hanky panky, that's a big no no. That would be evil.
Do you mean the CC?
@ThacoBell
"Yes, they are part of the CC's 'selective' services, but only the slave fights is shown as being evil, the companion services are still available after Hendak takes control of the CC"
No they are not, all the prostitutes upstairs disappear when Hendak takes over.
There's a marked difference between BG and BG2. I'd put it down to BG2 attempting to appeal to a more widestream audience. BG got away with a lot in that respect in comparison. BG2 strikes me as being very influenced by North American sensibilities as opposed to the more European approach in BG (or to be exact UK influence).
In BG it's all a bit slap and tickle, the prostitutes make jokes especially with their set phrases, "I've never been with a man", "Do you want to look at me diddies" ect.
Not saying it's not as sleazy as hell, but there is a less puritanical approach. But more "Carry On Baldurs Gate" with Sid James than "Last Tango in Nashkel" with Marlon Brando.
I'm sorry but I can't help but say that perhaps your reading way more into the whole issue than there really is. There is nothing in BG2 that suggests that Keldorn would be himself considered weak over the whole matter.
In fact the only thing that can really be construed from it all is that perhaps his noble name be besmirched by lack of faithfulness and impotence on the part of the other man would not actually lessen that. It would still be scandal amongst the Noble Crowd. And Might be seen as even more of a scandal that sex wasn't the reason behind it all. Simple lust can be considered momentary and easily forgotten, scandal of the moment rather than a sign of long term relationship problems that actually do exist.
Everything you say is correct, but the writers themselves still deemed it necessary to put in the "impotence" bit.
Just as some NPC cannot use the massage service offered in the UN lust chambers.
What we are discussing here is the motivation behind what is presented as the finished product. Of course we are reading far too much into it, wouldn't be on this forum at all if all of us didn't do that to an extent. But since when has reading anything not relied on interpretation and reading between the lines?
And what writer of any degree of competence wouldn't be aware of that?
So either the writers were so amateur they didn't even think of the overall impression they were presenting with the dialog choices/story choices they wrote.
Or they were aware of it and were trying to create a unified picture.
You've gone some way to convincing me that sex is not portrayed as morally neutral in BG2, though I still don't think there's a clear, consistent or strong message to that effect. To some extent I suspect that you're interpreting particular bits of information in ways that fit your existing template - but then we're all guilty of that
This felt a little silly to me. I don’t mind that a game world has archaic laws within the worlds setting. It was this effort to make it “not so bad” that felt out of place to me. Also it sort of took the sting out of the decision that Keldorn had to make. In the end, what decision did he have to make? Forgive her for having a close friend while he was away?
@UnderstandMouseMagic "To some extent I suspect that you're interpreting particular bits of information in ways that fit your existing template" This right here, you are making some very large leaps to connect all this.
@Ravenslight Actually, that made it WORSE for me. It wasn't for superficial reasons, but a complete ursurpation of the relationship between couples.
" Actually, that made it WORSE for me. It wasn't for superficial reasons, but a complete ursurpation of the relationship between couples."
There's no suggestion made by the character that had he been able to "perform" he wouldn't have also taken over as father to the daughters, companion ect.
And "sex" isn't superficial in a relationship between couples. Maria is not going out banging anybody who looks her way which could be interpreted as superficial.
What we are presented with is a long term alternative relationship because her husband doesn't ever come home.
The only thing missing is the sex.
So if you accuse me of looking to fit things into an "existing template" that's fair enough, but what's your interpretation of why the writers included the "impotent" part?
Writers convey information, in a format as restricted as a computer game it's odd to add something that has no meaning other than what they thought was a good idea at the time. And I'm just not buying it as a reason.
As @Ravenslight says, it strikes her as unecessary and deliberate, same here.
It was added because it shows a deeper betrayal. Long term relationships last because there is more to a healthy relationship than lust or physical attraction. The impotent line makes it unambiguously clear that this was more than an affair of lust, it was the wholesale replacement of a member of the family. It deepens Maria's betrayal because she fully replaced her husband. It also deepens Keldorn's abandonment of his family because he left such a large hole to be filled.
If you mean the betrayal that occurred on an emotional level, I would agree with you. The problem is that in this story the “broken law” was made such a focal part of the story. The emotional betrayal was just kind of skimmed over. But the author makes a big point of making sure that you know that no actual sex could have occurred.“Oh it’s not so bad as they never actually had sex.”
I would agree that the damage that can done to a relationship when one person develops true feelings for someone else can be greater than what is done with a simple sexual infidelity.
But the story focused on her breaking a law. Keldorn had to decide her fate because of the law that was broken. When all the facts are gathered, what law did she break? Again, it all just starts to break down for me at this point and starts to feel silly. Can you imagine how busy the forces of the law would be if they had to lock up anyone who ever had lustful or longing thoughts for another person?