@Mirandel Corruption isn't just bribes or mob connections. Charname was arrested and tried and faced execution based on literally zero evidence and in the case of some charnames (clerics anyone?) physically impossible circumstances, all because of a single duke and some shaky family history. Its incredibly corrupt, and for a good charname, even the other dukes realize its all bogus and personally orchestrate charname's escape, going so far as one of them personally explaining the situation.
And this is exactly what was left out of the plot - HOW could that happen? Not to mention, Charname got arrested way before Eltar even new about death of his daughter, arrested not only for no reason but against any sane judgement of the event itself. Should there be personal forces of Eltar with free leave to arrest anyone on spot even in the war time - it would be understandable, but like this?
Writers left out everything that could lead to the arrest: political games, crowd hate for charname, change of hearts of BG, ability of Eltar to run BG any way he wants, readiness of Eltar to blame anyone he wants for anything he wants, Eltar's hand in the army - everything. They (writers) probably thought that they left clues, but these are the clues not supported by story, lore or by game mechanic (unchanged reputation is only one example). These are the clues for someone, who wrote the script and changed it so many times he can skip pages and still perfectly understand the logic of events (and for whom rules of the game do not exist). The rest of us have to headcanon clues and reasons, suddenly ignoring lore and game mechanic, because instead of dramatic culmination we got dramatic stupidity. It ruins the otherwise good story.
Moving away from the trial I've gone back to have a look at the dialogue during the jailbreak. It is interesting because there does seem to be a suggestion that the Hooded Man himself may be involved in breaking you out.
But before we get to that there is a moment where the Hooded Man turns up and incriminates himself for the murder of Skie in front of the Flaming Fist guard:
The fact that the Flaming Fist guards don't react to this would suggest that they must be in the pay of the Hooded Man (however, they must be pretty good actors because prior to this they have been reviling you and hitting you for bringing shame on the city of Baldur's Gate).
The Hooded Man then goes back to being portentous and informs you that you are going to escape from the jail:
The Hooded Man then leaves and the Thief turns up to break you out of jail, informing you that Imoen paid him.
However, when you find the corpses of the Flaming Fist guards you can express surprise that Imoen would be involved in something like this and the Thief's reply is somewhat evasive. It could be interpreted as saying he doesn't really know who is paying him:
Now all of this could suggest that the Hooded Man is in fact the one who is behind your jailbreak. However, there are two problems with this:
1. Imoen is waiting for you outside and has gathered your former friends to meet you.
2. The game itself informs you that Imoen helped you escape:
One explanation could be that the Hooded Man has engineered the situation and then somehow tricked Imoen into being involved in it.
Another is that the whole thing is badly thought out and is an incoherent mess.
Most likely he meant to type @chimaera but the forum auto-completed it to your name instead.
Yup! Not the first time, nor likely the last either!
@chimaera (double checks to make sure its right this time)
Our interpretations simply differ, as your version makes little sense to me. Really though that's what makes these discussions so fun, the different viewpoints.
@Permidion_Stark huh, is that flaming fist guard always there for you? The Hooded Man always visited my charname alone in the jail.
Its incredibly corrupt, and for a good charname, even the other dukes realize its all bogus and personally orchestrate charname's escape, going so far as one of them personally explaining the situation.
That's the sad thing about the "default" ending when you didn't play good enough / evil enough or didn't defend yourself in the game: There is no Duke coming to explain anything. At some point, even headcanon needs some input.
Its incredibly corrupt, and for a good charname, even the other dukes realize its all bogus and personally orchestrate charname's escape, going so far as one of them personally explaining the situation.
That's the sad thing about the "default" ending when you didn't play good enough / evil enough or didn't defend yourself in the game: There is no Duke coming to explain anything. At some point, even headcanon needs some input.
I personally file this under, "The BG series has always assumed a good charname and any other path has always felt less when it comes to the story."
@chimaera Its not a sudden rise, she has always been a minor celebrity by virtue of being a duke's daughter. How many celebrities that no one has really seemed to care about for awhile suddenly is getting news coverage solely because of their death? I suspect her joining the army also stopped being secret when it was convienant to convict a scapegoat.
I personally file this under, "The BG series has always assumed a good charname and any other path has always felt less when it comes to the story."
No problem with that - I play good always. Still no-one explained anything to my PC. Not saying three more sentences at the trial changed the other Duke's opinion about CHARNAME so much they didn't even bother to explain the rep 20 paladin what is going on. Not very realistic.
@ThacoBell This doesn't answer my question. Whether you consider her a minor celebrity or not, you can kill her in BG1 without much trouble. What I am asking for is pointing out the in-game explanation how you go from this point, to Skie's murder causing riots in the streets.
The BG1 shows this 'minor celebrity' to be of litlle importance, where does SoD show this canon has changed, before the murder & trial happen? E.g. where are the folk gossiping about Skie's rise to popularity in the city? In BG1, when it comes to big news, you have messengers and you have the occasional NPC commenting on them. In SoD there are crickets chirping.
The focus of BG1 is stopping the Iron Throne, finding Gorion's killer, and not being killed by assassin's yourself. Skie's political and social standing is not essential to the story, so it has no part. Its only when it becomes relevant to charname that it becomes a focus. Things happen "off-stage" in any story. Though SoD does it too often.
you also have to factor in that most people are never gonna use skie in bg1. even with mods that move npcs to earlier sections she and yeslick are stuck here they are due to plot reasons.
@chimaera "You can sum up just about every missing explanation as "things happen off-stage""
Well, can you imagine if in BG1 we had to read paragraphs dedicated to Skie's popularity in Baldur's Gate? That would be MIND NUMBING. Off stage happenings for unimportant details is very common in storytelling of any kind.
@chimaera "You can sum up just about every missing explanation as "things happen off-stage""
Well, can you imagine if in BG1 we had to read paragraphs dedicated to Skie's popularity in Baldur's Gate? That would be MIND NUMBING. Off stage happenings for unimportant details is very common in storytelling of any kind.
Not really, at least not in any kind of good storytelling. Inconsistencies with previous canon is something every follower of any story will notes right away and point out with all twenty fingers. Even Bioware - pretty liberal with their canons - try to at least explain how next inconsistency happen.
Besides, Illydth did not say a word about Skie importance (it's your headcanon correction - a good one (truly good!) if only was not against the lore). For a good reason - SoD never points out that importance at all, Skie is nothing but annoying burden for those who know about her presence in the army. According to Illydth the riot is about that "sign of Ball" and "a murder" that somehow goes with it. "A" murder - as of "any". I'd say, this was not thought out at all from the setting point of view. In a meaning "was not something anyone gave a second thought" because for modern society murder is the worst possible crime. Anything was supposed to fade away in light of that horror. Unfortunately, logic and common sense joined fading crowd and explanation for importance of that murder in that setting with that characters got lost in re-writings, cuts and deadlines.
I haven't really used Skie in BG so correct me if this is wrong.
Don't you have a quest if you take Eldoth that means you take her/fake kidnap her?
So if SOD makes a big deal of her murder as @ThacoBell says, doesn't that somewhat mess up the idea that Skie can disappear with Eldoth and then be with your group right through to killing Sarevok? Where was the outrage then? And wouldn't Eldoth, or even Charname, be far more circumspect about trying that with Skie because of the possible consequences?
you need eldoth to even get skie if i remember right. thats why mods can move him but not her.
Yes. If you talk to Skie without him in the party she will call guards to attack you. Even when she joins she never really bond with anyone, she just complains, get abused by Eldoth (but still defends him to Garrick) and occasionally fangirls on Shar-Teel.
In BG you are accused of killing Reiltar and the Iron Throne delagation
Damn straight! I killed the bastards and admitted it!
Doesn't that give you a non-standard Game Over during the Candlekeep Escape?
Nope. You don't even need to be goaded into it by Koveras to do it. Even if you mistrust him so much he leaves without giving you the ring you can still take upon yourself to kill Rieltar and basically tell Tethoril that the bastard had it coming.
Comments
Writers left out everything that could lead to the arrest: political games, crowd hate for charname, change of hearts of BG, ability of Eltar to run BG any way he wants, readiness of Eltar to blame anyone he wants for anything he wants, Eltar's hand in the army - everything. They (writers) probably thought that they left clues, but these are the clues not supported by story, lore or by game mechanic (unchanged reputation is only one example). These are the clues for someone, who wrote the script and changed it so many times he can skip pages and still perfectly understand the logic of events (and for whom rules of the game do not exist). The rest of us have to headcanon clues and reasons, suddenly ignoring lore and game mechanic, because instead of dramatic culmination we got dramatic stupidity. It ruins the otherwise good story.
But before we get to that there is a moment where the Hooded Man turns up and incriminates himself for the murder of Skie in front of the Flaming Fist guard:
The fact that the Flaming Fist guards don't react to this would suggest that they must be in the pay of the Hooded Man (however, they must be pretty good actors because prior to this they have been reviling you and hitting you for bringing shame on the city of Baldur's Gate).
The Hooded Man then goes back to being portentous and informs you that you are going to escape from the jail:
The Hooded Man then leaves and the Thief turns up to break you out of jail, informing you that Imoen paid him.
However, when you find the corpses of the Flaming Fist guards you can express surprise that Imoen would be involved in something like this and the Thief's reply is somewhat evasive. It could be interpreted as saying he doesn't really know who is paying him:
Now all of this could suggest that the Hooded Man is in fact the one who is behind your jailbreak. However, there are two problems with this:
1. Imoen is waiting for you outside and has gathered your former friends to meet you.
2. The game itself informs you that Imoen helped you escape:
One explanation could be that the Hooded Man has engineered the situation and then somehow tricked Imoen into being involved in it.
Another is that the whole thing is badly thought out and is an incoherent mess.
@chimaera (double checks to make sure its right this time)
Our interpretations simply differ, as your version makes little sense to me. Really though that's what makes these discussions so fun, the different viewpoints.
@Permidion_Stark huh, is that flaming fist guard always there for you? The Hooded Man always visited my charname alone in the jail.
At some point, even headcanon needs some input.
@chimaera Its not a sudden rise, she has always been a minor celebrity by virtue of being a duke's daughter. How many celebrities that no one has really seemed to care about for awhile suddenly is getting news coverage solely because of their death? I suspect her joining the army also stopped being secret when it was convienant to convict a scapegoat.
Well, can you imagine if in BG1 we had to read paragraphs dedicated to Skie's popularity in Baldur's Gate? That would be MIND NUMBING. Off stage happenings for unimportant details is very common in storytelling of any kind.
Besides, Illydth did not say a word about Skie importance (it's your headcanon correction - a good one (truly good!) if only was not against the lore). For a good reason - SoD never points out that importance at all, Skie is nothing but annoying burden for those who know about her presence in the army. According to Illydth the riot is about that "sign of Ball" and "a murder" that somehow goes with it. "A" murder - as of "any".
I'd say, this was not thought out at all from the setting point of view. In a meaning "was not something anyone gave a second thought" because for modern society murder is the worst possible crime. Anything was supposed to fade away in light of that horror. Unfortunately, logic and common sense joined fading crowd and explanation for importance of that murder in that setting with that characters got lost in re-writings, cuts and deadlines.
Don't you have a quest if you take Eldoth that means you take her/fake kidnap her?
So if SOD makes a big deal of her murder as @ThacoBell says, doesn't that somewhat mess up the idea that Skie can disappear with Eldoth and then be with your group right through to killing Sarevok?
Where was the outrage then?
And wouldn't Eldoth, or even Charname, be far more circumspect about trying that with Skie because of the possible consequences?