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[SPOLIERS] In TOB How Is It Possible For Charname To______? (STAY AWAY UNLESS YOU'VE BEATEN GAME)

NoloirNoloir Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 380
In TOB how was it possible for <charname> to ascend to the Throne of Bhaal and potentially Godhood if Vikaang was still alive skulking about?
Post edited by Noloir on

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  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    edited March 2020
    Great question! I'm not going to put a spoiler tag on what follows since you have one in your title (and your question gives away the main point anyway) but people really should stay away from this thread if they somehow don't know how the saga ends.

    The Five and Melissan are very clear that we're dealing with a Highlander-type situation in which no one can ascend until only a single Bhaalspawn remains, as the Solar also emphasizes during CHARNAME's final conversation with Imoen. However I would point out that we have no idea in-game whether the devs understood Viekang to be alive when CHARNAME ascends or whether they assumed the Five would have disposed of him shortly after he left Saradush. Certainly the Solar conversation at the end of the game would suggest he isn't, though it is also possible the devs simply forgot about him or didn't realize the logical problem with him surviving.

    This question has been asked a lot over the years, especially after Wizards of the Coast recently wrote a BG sequel of sorts in which VIekang appears. No answer is given in that product, though some players have theorycrafted their own mental lore that says only a certain percentage of Bhaalspawn had to be eliminated for CHARNAME's ascension to occur. However I suspect the bottom line is that no one at WotC cared enough about the intricacies of a 20 year old game to worry about bringing Viekang back.

    NoloirThacoBellAedan
  • NoloirNoloir Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 380
    jsaving wrote: »
    Great question! I'm not going to put a spoiler tag on what follows since you have one in your title (and your question gives away the main point anyway) but people really should stay away from this thread if they somehow don't know how the saga ends.

    The Five and Melissan are very clear that we're dealing with a Highlander-type situation in which no one can ascend until only a single Bhaalspawn remains, as the Solar also emphasizes during CHARNAME's final conversation with Imoen. However I would point out that we have no idea in-game whether the devs understood Viekang to be alive when CHARNAME ascends or whether they assumed the Five would have disposed of him shortly after he left Saradush. Certainly the Solar conversation at the end of the game would suggest he isn't, though it is also possible the devs simply forgot about him or didn't realize the logical problem with him surviving.

    This question has been asked a lot over the years, especially after Wizards of the Coast recently wrote a BG sequel of sorts in which VIekang appears. No answer is given in that product, though some players have theorycrafted their own mental lore that says only a certain percentage of Bhaalspawn had to be eliminated for CHARNAME's ascension to occur. However I suspect the bottom line is that no one at WotC cared enough about the intricacies of a 20 year old game to worry about bringing Viekang back.

    Thank you. A pretty strange oversight considering the "there can only be one!" theme throughout the saga to that point.
    ThacoBell
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    not only him is a problem, also imoen is a spawn and even sarevok has a very little amount of the essence, not the one from being a spawn himself, the little spark of essence that charname or imoen give to him at the beginning of tob.
    also even if melissan managed to gather all the minor spawns in saradush given their number how could she be sure that she did found them all, it is not possible that some minor spawn lives somewhere ignoring to be so? imoen was not aware to be a spawn before irenicus told her and afaik melissan had not a spawn scope that reveals all the spawn in the whole prime material plane.

    i think that the game is a great game even if the plot is flawed, i would say that here instead of the suspension of disbelief we should use a suspension of logic.
    and this is not only true for this saga, i did found some similar flaws also in other ones ie in the harry potter's one, that imo is a very good saga with a sound plot and an original and well conceived way to implement the existance of magic and mages in the world. and those flaws, that probably the 99.9% of the readers don't even notice, does not change anything on the quality of that plot, just like this flaw does not chance anything on the quality of the bg saga's plot.
  • NoloirNoloir Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 380
    edited March 2020
    gorgonzola wrote: »
    not only him is a problem, also imoen is a spawn and even sarevok has a very little amount of the essence, not the one from being a spawn himself, the little spark of essence that charname or imoen give to him at the beginning of tob.
    also even if melissan managed to gather all the minor spawns in saradush given their number how could she be sure that she did found them all, it is not possible that some minor spawn lives somewhere ignoring to be so? imoen was not aware to be a spawn before irenicus told her and afaik melissan had not a spawn scope that reveals all the spawn in the whole prime material plane.

    i think that the game is a great game even if the plot is flawed, i would say that here instead of the suspension of disbelief we should use a suspension of logic.
    and this is not only true for this saga, i did found some similar flaws also in other ones ie in the harry potter's one, that imo is a very good saga with a sound plot and an original and well conceived way to implement the existance of magic and mages in the world. and those flaws, that probably the 99.9% of the readers don't even notice, does not change anything on the quality of that plot, just like this flaw does not chance anything on the quality of the bg saga's plot.

    Iirc, based on the end game video after Sarevok's death a his "essence" wafted toward a stone statue of himself within the Under City Temple and the statue crumbled. Then the video showed cavities of countless other statues implied to be the myriad of living Bhaalspawn around the realms.

    Player character had dreams of a dagger of bone striking his statue "rending him/her with pain" like some type of voodoo doll, phalactery type connection. Giving rise to another question..

    If all of these statues were shattered but one then it'd be reasonable to conclude that the one remeaning is the final living Bhaalspawn. Whether Melissan was aware of the Under City Temple or the link between the Bhaalspawn & their respective statues is up in the air, though.
    ThacoBell
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    edited March 2020
    There isn't really an ingame answer to this beyond, "Welp, he must have died since we saw him last." The devs definitely forgot him. Since ALL the essence had to in a single vessel for the ascension or resurrection to work.

    @gorgonzola Imoen gives up her god essence and the Solar gives it to you in the ending. Sarevok loses it when he is killed at BG.
    jsaving
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    about sarewok i told about the little part of essence that you or imoen give to him at the beginning of tob, not about the essence that he had when he was born, that he lost dying.
    very little part, but the game's lore is clear, all the essence must be gathered before the ascension or its destruction depending on charname's choice.
    even if it is a very little part afaik he don't give it back, and there is also no clue of how it is possible that melissan gathered all the spawns in saradush, even if she is a powerful one and a former cleric of the god the game don't give us any hint or clue of her being able to identify all the possible spawns and some of those spawns can themselves not be aware of being so, like imoen was, so had no reason to answer to a melissan call to find rescue at saradush as they did not even know to be in peril.
    about imoen you are right, she gives back her part of essence.
  • KhyronKhyron Member Posts: 626
    afaik, the "there can be only one" thing is just something a lot of characters in the saga assume.. and not something that is explicitly confirmed in the lore.
    Whatever Amelissan thinks is true or correct, certainly doesn't -have- to be the case.. she is quite fallible after all.

    To me that gives enough of an opening to think that if you just have "enough" of the essence you can ascend.. It would be difficult to ensure you've killed EVERYONE.
    gorgonzolaGrond0
  • BlackbɨrdBlackbɨrd Member Posts: 293
    Use your imagination.
  • ShangerooShangeroo Member Posts: 84
    edited March 2020
    Since Viekang was stuck in Saradush I always assumed he died when Saradush fell in the siege. Also if you converse with him at the Saradush tavern, his teleportation is caused by fear which Melissan helped to "cure". He mentions that Melissan helped him so he must feel some false sense of security with her. Another assumption is that Melissan uses this relationship to kill him before the end of the siege. Remember her plan was to pretend to help Bhaalspawn and gather them all in one place to easily kill.

    In my evil playthroughs however, I had peace of mind and confirmation as I personally killed every Bhaalspawn I ran into.
    sarevok57
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @gorgonzola No no. You aren't giving Sarevok any divine essence. You're giving him a small part of your (or Imoen's) soul. Sarevok has lost ALL divine essence, and at no time does he get any back.
    sarevok57
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,211
    edited March 2020
    Shangeroo wrote: »
    Since Viekang was stuck in Saradush I always assumed he died when Saradush fell in the siege. Also if you converse with him at the Saradush tavern, his teleportation is caused by fear which Melissan helped to "cure". He mentions that Melissan helped him so he must feel some false sense of security with her. Another assumption is that Melissan uses this relationship to kill him before the end of the siege. Remember her plan was to pretend to help Bhaalspawn and gather them all in one place to easily kill.

    In my evil playthroughs however, I had peace of mind and confirmation as I personally killed every Bhaalspawn I ran into.
    IIRC you can get him to teleport out of Saradush by having high INT in dialogue options, or by using a fear effect on him (Spook works nicely). So it's not a given that he was stuck in Saradush until death.
    ThacoBell
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    I think needing "enough" of the essence makes some sense, considering Sarevok's plan to ascend in BG1. Apparently, you can get a whole lot of Bhaal essence by killing other Bhaalspawn, but you can also get *some* essence just by committing murder in general. Sarevok thought he was going to get enough essence to ascend by not only killing every other Bhaalspawn he could find, but also by starting a war with Amn just so thousands would die.

    If all he needed was to find and kill all other Bhaalspawn, then why start the war? What purpose would it serve?

    On the other hand, if you know of other Bhaalspawn who have collected almost as much essence as you, such as the Five in ToB, then you definitely need to kill those rivals so they won't ascend before you can.
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    edited March 2020
    you don't collect essence killing people or even killing other spawns.
    the essence that is in every spawn, when he gets killed, is freed and returns to the throne, at least this is how the thing works in ToB, where even if charname is the one that kills the most powerful spawns, and yaga sura, himself or trough his minions, is the one that kills most of the minor ones in saradush, all the essence is in the end gathered in the throne.
    and nothing in the game let us suppose that yaga or charname become more powerful because of the essence that they have gathered, as actually they don gather it.
    at the moment charname faces the final boss, if he would had got the essence from the kills, he should have almost all of it, being immortal and very close to a god, but still not a god, as the solar tells to melissan, as he killed the other big spawns while yaga had also the essence of all the small ones.

    but who has become super powerful? the one that has control of the throne, so the essence.
    and she actually replenish her health and strength drawing more essence from the throne at each phase of the battle, we are pretty sure that killing spawns one does not put their essence in our own pocket.

    in bg sarevok starts a big war and kills a lot of common people, without focusing at all on killing spawns, right at the beginning he kills gorion, that is not a spawn, while 2 spawns are there, even if he possibly ignores that imoen is so.
    so the cases are 2: he has done his research in a wrong way and actually he becomes very powerful in a mundane way, but he has no chance at all to ascend, as he is killing the wrong people.
    or the lore of bg completely contradicts the ToB one.

    i can not tell which is the case, but from the ToB lore is clear that killing spawns don't adds their essence to the one that the killer has.
    and that to use the essence, to become more powerful because you have at your disposal a lot of it, is not needed to be a spawn, melissian is not so, but she has the control of the ToB and the knowledge needed to manipulate that essence, in the last battle of the saga charname is a spawn, and he is so close to all the essence, but he is not the one that has control on it and that becomes super powerful cause of it.

    EDIT: also i don't see a reason why a spawn should get the essence if some other person in his party gets the kill, are we sure that yaga himself kills all the minor spawns and not some other guy of his army?
    and what happens if in a certain party charname is a bard that spends his time in the battle singing and imoen, spawn herself and a powerful archmage in ToB, is the one that kills the 5?
    the fact that charname is the party leader should probably don't matter at all, and the solar should give to imoen the choice to ascend or not as she is the one that has got all the kills, that has gathered all the essence in the throne.
    but the choice is given to charname anyway, and not for lore reasons or for a good plot, only because he is charname, in spite that the plot can put an other spawn with him and that is possible that is that other spawn that actually kills her siblings. it is even possible that she is the one that kills sarevok in bg by the way.
    Post edited by gorgonzola on
    ThacoBell
  • KhyronKhyron Member Posts: 626
    There are actually small mentions of charname being special, the one.

    The solar not only asks what you will do with the power when you get it.. but the forest spirit (talking heads) speak of the comming of gorions ward.. the one foretold, the one foreseen.

    So despite Amelissans deception and what the others and Sarevok may think, perhaps charname is the only one who can truly cull Bhaals essence and take it for himself, whilst all others would be consumed by Bhaal.

    Many possible explanations
    ThacoBellgorgonzola
  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    edited March 2020
    I would point out that various NPCs in the saga have incorrect or incomplete understandings of what it will take to Ascend, Sarevok incorrectly thinks "a big enough war" will let him ascend in BG1 and only realizes after his "death" that it is not killing per se but the disposal of Bhaalspawn that is required. The Solar and the talking heads go a step further and not only know "there can be only one" but have the wisdom to see CHARNAME is the one about whom the prophecies are speaking, which is not obvious to anyone else in the game world though a few people like Melissan are able to approach this level of understanding and see CHARNAME might be the one.

    Very likely Alaundo's prophecies came from the same divine source the Solar serves, which makes it unsurprising that the Solar with a more direct connection to that source is able to hear and understand them whereas Alaundo can only speak them.
    Post edited by jsaving on
    ThacoBellgorgonzolaBelgarathMTH
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @Khyron I don't think the prophecy is a matter of "charname is the only one who can" so much as "charname is the one who will". Like, any bhaalspawn could potentially do it, but the prophecy is just foreknowledge of the one who "did" in the future.
    gorgonzola
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    Khyron wrote: »

    So despite Amelissans deception and what the others and Sarevok may think, perhaps charname is the only one who can truly cull Bhaals essence and take it for himself, whilst all others would be consumed by Bhaal.
    if it is true a charname that chose to don't fight both the bosses and is not interested himself in ascending can win the game right at the beginning of bg, only clearing an area and living there in peace as a regular person, as no one but him has really a chance to ascend.
    it would be a quite boring way to play the game, wandering around in the same area, chatting with the not hostile people that also leave there and repeating it after sleeping, but to some extent it is how most of us live their real life anyway... :smiley:

  • KhyronKhyron Member Posts: 626
    gorgonzola wrote: »
    Khyron wrote: »

    So despite Amelissans deception and what the others and Sarevok may think, perhaps charname is the only one who can truly cull Bhaals essence and take it for himself, whilst all others would be consumed by Bhaal.
    if it is true a charname that chose to don't fight both the bosses and is not interested himself in ascending can win the game right at the beginning of bg, only clearing an area and living there in peace as a regular person, as no one but him has really a chance to ascend.
    it would be a quite boring way to play the game, wandering around in the same area, chatting with the not hostile people that also leave there and repeating it after sleeping, but to some extent it is how most of us live their real life anyway... :smiley:

    Weeell.. that is a potential ending, is it not? Fate can be funny thing.. perhaps you are fated to invent limitless energy.. or perhaps you are fated to live a mundane life like the rest of us, despite potential to invent limitless energy. Thus fate keeps it locked away for all of us.

    If gorion's ward decided to be a farmer out in the arse end of nowhere and never fulfill his "destiny", then perhaps Amelissan would just have her face melt off and Bhaal truly resurrects.. or perhaps not killing Sarevok means he takes gorion's wards place as the one foreseen, the one foretold.

    There are many ifs and buts, but few hard facts in this.

    If the prophecy, the solar and the forest spirit speak of the only one who "can" or the one who "will" do this, would be speculation.. Now Amelissan sure is powerfull, but she's not a bhaalspawn, so perhaps she'd never gain control. Sarevok? Perhaps he could do it if given the chance.. but there's no guarantee that he would be able to. What if viekang was the last one standing.. would he have the necessary skills and knowledge to do anything about it?

    Even Gorion's Ward is clueless in all of this, and without the help of Sarevok and the Solar he/she might not have fulfilled the prophecy.
    gorgonzola
  • AewyrvenAewyrven Member Posts: 228
    edited April 2020
    Mellisam calmed viekangs ability to teleport, even if after saradush fell the shield is still presumably up so if he did, well, he splats just like the dumb thief does when he uses the scroll..

    As for the souls....

    Solar removes Imoens taint and leaves her soul intact. Sending it to the stream.

    She gives a part of her soul (or you do) to bring him back.

    Saervok explicitly states he is not sustained by the bhaalspawn taint but your (or imoens) soul. He is not a bhaalspawn.

    Even if the parts you or imoen gave are tainted, it is still part of your soul, imoen has hers washed clean, washing oil off a dirty pan the pan remains. Saervoks soul splinter is washed clean the splinter remains.

    This applies even if you go good or evil except his soul remains tainted if you go evil and ascend or gets cleansed if you dont ascend. (His soul is yours so the taint is shared and would be cleansed or remain either way)

    The cool thing with this, if one of the other gods splat you, you can actually come back to him or imoen and revive if neither of them are alive just like how saervok did it off you, and if you ascended, saervok should get an augment portion from this, so maybe 1 or 2 bhaalspawn powers back on the power curve since you're a god now.
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