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[Endgame Spoilers] Skie in BG2EE?

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  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    edited June 2016
    There is no proof she isn't either. There are thousands of Bhaalspawn, so there is a fare chance anyone aged around 20 is one.

    Anyway, read my earlier post as to why she pretty much has to be a Bhaalspawn, and why it will be important in BG3. I was paying attention to what was said at the end of SoD.
  • O_BruceO_Bruce Member Posts: 2,790
    Fardragon said:

    There is no proof she isn't either. There are thousands of Bhaalspawn, so there is a fare chance anyone aged around 20 is one.

    Normal conversation:
    "I have an apple behind my back!"
    "Prove it"
    "Here! Look!"

    Your argumentation:
    "I have an apple behind my back!"
    "Prove it"
    "Prove that I don't!"

    Sorry I expressed that in such a way, but I'm not very flexible with a language that's not native to me.
    Fardragon said:

    Anyway, read my earlier post as to why she pretty much has to be a Bhaalspawn, and why it will be important in BG3. I was paying attention to what was said at the end of SoD.

    About that, let's recall what happens when Bhaalspawn die. Original BG1 ending would suffice for that. Since nothing like that happening has been mentioned - any Skie's body is preserved - I doubt your claims. Now, why and how Joneleth did what he did is interesting, but I doubt that the point you made are enough for definitely saying "she has to be Bhaalspawn".

    Even if you were to say that her Bhaalspawn essence was still preserved in her body somehow, we have Throne of Bhaal to consider, where at the end either all of Bhaal's essence become yours or all of it is hidden forever. Needless to say, nothing is mentioned of Skie. I don't think it would be even had Beamdog had a right to adjust original content to fit SoD more into original saga.
  • CalemyrCalemyr Member Posts: 238
    edited June 2016
    Is there any reason Entar has to believe Skie is his blood? Gorion knew and put his entire life on hold to raise the Scion in a secure environment, as well as readily put himself in front of the Scion when Big Brother stopped by.

    But then, there's another angle, too. The Scion isn't the only Bhaalspawn taken in the raid on the Forest of Wyrms. Gorion had personal reasons for claiming that one as a ward, but the Harpers were stuck with a number of children that were "born not innocent" - couldn't kill them because they were kids, couldn't cut them loose because they were Bhaalspawn. So they try to find homes for them. Imoen got dropped with Puff-Guts. I don't remember if it was canon or not, but I believe her arrival at Candlekeep was somewhat later than the Scion's.

    May I present an alternative story?

    Entar Silvershield was desperate. He and his wife had tried hard, but they were only able to have one son (the kid that dies on Kagain's watch), and a noble family is expected to have two at least to preserve the line. In comes the Harpers, a respected and good-aligned organization, with an offer they could not refuse: a child in desperate need of a home and loving parents. Entar resisted, believing that knowing the child wasn't his would make it impossible to love her. Then he saw her and his heart melted. Skie became a Silvershield and the Duke would permit nobody to say otherwise.

    Entar never knew the full story about his new daughter. He trusted the Harpers perhaps too much to question it. But their warnings worried him, about protecting her from a dark fate, leading him to be overprotective. She grew to resent her father, and yearn to live out the stories her father told. Her discontent and unquestioning faith made her easy prey for Eldoth.

    When she returned from that adventure, Skie was a changed woman. She had now seen the world. Understood what she had been rebelling against, and what her father had worked to shield her from, and she was inspired. She decided to become a Flaming Fist, to earn her way through skill and tenacity and taking no advantage from her name. And Entar let her, because he felt he had to. And then she died. At the hands of one of the very individuals he once lauded as a hero.

    It didn't matter that Entar didn't father the child. It never did. The Duke adored her and wanted to protect her and, when he found he had failed, wanted only to avenge her.

    Anyway, the assumption that Entar is Skie's biological father is assumed by everyone. That she's anything else would be a twist, an unexpected development that surprises us because we were blinded by our own assumptions. It would certainly be a gut punch to Skie.

    And not all Bhaalspawn are one-and-done. Sarevok was. The Scion is. Imoen is not. Sure, that's because she was an afterthought in BG1 and nobody expected her to be a breakout star, but she is Bhaalspawn and can die a thousand times with naught but a snide comment from the party. Again, we assume the one-and-done thing is a rule, without it being written anywhere. Could it be that mastery can never be obtained by a Bhaalspawn that has died (meaning there is no point to resurrect Sarevok and the prophecy dies if the Scion does)? Could it be that only strong Bhaalspawn are destroyed if killed? Could it be that Imoen is just that special? Could it be that nobody actually thought it through and it leaves a huge gaping plot hole that nobody has ever been able to satisfyingly address? Who knows? There's simply not enough canonical data to claim any interpretation but the meta is actual law.

    And while the Solar does indeed say that the essence is there to hide or claim, she fails to take small fry into consideration. If Imoen is alive but not in the party (chilling in Amn, for instance), or if Viekang the Coward got Horrified into teleporting out of Saradush, there will be some essence that has not been collected. She is being general, here, to say 99% is "all of it". Due to the dagger, the essence would not have returned to the Throne and she would still be Bhaalspawn when resurrected - in an era where godbloods are near unheard of and even her unrefined essence is a huge factor when it would have been a drop in the bucket back in ToB.
  • VbibbiVbibbi Member Posts: 229
    In FR canon, Viekang is explained as being the only other Bhaalspawn with Bhaal's essence remaining (along with Abdel/Charname). I would assume that since that takes place decades after ToB, they handwaved that all other minor Bhaalspawn had perished by that point. I don't think there can really be any lingering Bhaalspawn after ToB. If Skie does end up being a Bhaalspawn, I think it would have to be addressed in SoA/ToB. Anything in a theoretical BG3 is not actually going to involve Bhaalspawn.
  • CalemyrCalemyr Member Posts: 238
    Vbibbi said:

    In FR canon, Viekang is explained as being the only other Bhaalspawn with Bhaal's essence remaining (along with Abdel/Charname). I would assume that since that takes place decades after ToB, they handwaved that all other minor Bhaalspawn had perished by that point. I don't think there can really be any lingering Bhaalspawn after ToB. If Skie does end up being a Bhaalspawn, I think it would have to be addressed in SoA/ToB. Anything in a theoretical BG3 is not actually going to involve Bhaalspawn.

    Fardragon's version would have Skie tucked away, safe from the tide of blood in ToB.

    That said, I would rather her get addressed as part of the Scion's story, not as a footnote in an unrelated game. And I feel BG3 should be "unrelated", after a fashion. If the Scion isn't the main character, it should be the consequences of their actions that get explored, not the same plots dredged back up. To reference KotOR 2 yet again, the game is heavily about Revan, but from a remote angle, disconnected from the character. You see the actions and their consequences, you see people theorize about what kind of person they were, but the game itself isn't actually about Revan. It's about those Revan left behind. It's about the people scarred by Revan's choices, about the people inspired by Revan's examples, and about the galaxy as it struggles to work out whether Revan saved them or destroyed them. A BG3 would have to follow the same treacherous path, I feel. Minsc would be a great callback, but I don't know about Skie, especially as a Bhaalspawn. Alone she's not popular enough to have any draw. Bhaalspawn, she puts a millstone around the plot's neck that it really shouldn't need to carry.
    Vbibbi
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    Make the realms great again - leave Skie dead.

    Find a better story for bg3 or bg2ee Expansion than bringing back Skie. It's not too much to ask.
    Vbibbishawnerapsam2003JustLeft
  • JediMindTrixJediMindTrix Member Posts: 305
    resolved in BG2:ee i would love to see. the basis for bg3? no.
    Vbibbi
  • VasculioVasculio Member Posts: 469
    edited June 2016
    I want to reclaim the soultaker dagger, revive Skie and clear my name.
    Post edited by Vasculio on
  • kamuizinkamuizin Member Posts: 3,704
    edited June 2016
    Let's get easy with all this heat ppl.

    A point i give you @Caelemyr, is that indeed Irenicus never controlled charname's dream in BG2. That can bend the theory to another conclusion: The devs made shit Irenicus didn't control all the aspect of the illusion.

    He cast the illusion so a fearful being would threat charname so in the end he could use that conditioning to manipulate charname. The taint had an active influence in the effect of the spell without the knowledge of Irenicus (no matter how fucking strong he is, the essence is pure divine).

    What charname see maybe irenicus never knew, he just knew that he was seeing something fearful, something he could never react before and in the last dream was possible to pay back the attacks.

    From the possible spells i believe that Major Image, a special effect of the Nightmare Spell or an changed Phantasmal Killer spell maybe, adapted for irenicus pruposes, would do the trick.
  • Abi_DalzimAbi_Dalzim Member Posts: 1,428
    You know, I find myself pretty sympathetic to @Fardragon and @Calemyr's ideas regarding Skie, and I'd say the main reason for that is because I think SOD severely wasted Skie. Now, I haven't seen any polls, but I get the sense that Safana isn't too popular among people who played, or at the least people didn't appreciate having her shoehorned into every starting party with a severe lack of other thieves to use during the adventure. And I'd argue Skie makes more sense to fit that role - she seems very non-judgmental and easy to get along with if you can handle a little whining, her stats are slightly better than Safana's, and having her travel with you and watching some more of her struggles from up close would accentuate the coming tragedy, in the same vein as Yoshimo.

    On top of that, whereas there's no logical reason that Safana has to be in your "canonical" BG1 party, it actually would make a lot of sense for Skie to be there, since she's one of the few NPCs from the original game not only to have a motive to travel with you, but also a more specific reason to want a reckoning with Sarevok, who's robbed her of her father and (indirectly) her brother. Throw in Entar's demand that you keep a close eye on her, and you've even got an in-game reason to force her into your SOD party, at least at first.

    So, with these as my feelings on the matter, I can't help but feel like we got robbed of something special with Skie being so incidental to SOD until the ending. And with such an avoidably wasted opportunity, I can't help but want it to be made up for in the biggest manner possible, and, well, the Soultaker hook leading into a BG3 is about as big as it gets.
    kamuizin
  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    There are some very creative ideas in this thread about how Skie might best be used in a new Beamdog product, but it's worth pointing out that CHARNAME is given the choice to ascend because -- and only because -- he now controls 100% of the Bhaalspawn essence. That imposes real limits on how a "Skie as Bhaalspawn" story could be told and when it could be set. The best choice would probably be a BG2 expansion pack because, that way, she could remain a Bhaalspawn all the way through the storyline and then voluntarily surrender her essence a la Imoen at the very end of ToB. Or alternatively, perhaps CHARNAME could even be given the option to surrender *his* essence to Skie and go back to being a normal human being while she ascends, which would be an interesting twist to the saga.

    Even apart from these logical problems, though, I have trouble understanding why Skie's storyline would be a sensible stand-alone BG3. I mean, Skie's fate interests CHARNAME because he was framed for her murder and it just so happens that he can extract revenge through the natural course of Shadows of Amn with only minimal new coding required, making the Skie storyline a natural fit for a BG2 expansion pack whether or not she has anything to do with the Bhaalspawn. But if the Skie storyline were pushed to BG3, there'd be less of a reason for the new player character to care what happened to her and no revenge motive left for anybody.

    On the other hand, it could be we're thinking about BG3 all wrong, and the actual "hook" for the game isn't Skie at all but rather the power of the Soultaker dagger to prevent souls from reaching their eternal destinations. Perhaps BG3's villain would be taking out lots of key people using the dagger and the PC's task would be to free them, with Skie just so happening to be numbered among them. Or perhaps BG3's villain would be using the Soultaker as a battery to power a Sword-Coast wide capture of souls (a la Pillars of Eternity). Something like this could provide a reason for a hardy band of heroes to seek the Soultaker, even though they wouldn't necessarily care much about Skie.
    Vbibbi
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    edited June 2016

    Make the realms great again - leave Skie dead.

    Find a better story for bg3 or bg2ee Expansion than bringing back Skie. It's not too much to ask.

    I would like to here why you think that could not possibly be a good story. The only other suggestion I have heard is "the protagonist, who is no one in particular, hears of a great evil (unconnected in any way to anything that has happened previously) that they must track down and fight" which has to be the tritest, most unoriginal cliche ever.

    Of course, even that could make a good story, because what makes a story good or bad is not the plot but the way it is told.

    (Oh, and by the way, it is BG3 (with 5th edition rules) not a BG2 expansion that Dave Gaider was hired for. This is known.)
  • MateoFrozenMateoFrozen Member Posts: 82
    jsaving said:



    On the other hand, it could be we're thinking about BG3 all wrong, and the actual "hook" for the game isn't Skie at all but rather the power of the Soultaker dagger to prevent souls from reaching their eternal destinations. Perhaps BG3's villain would be taking out lots of key people using the dagger and the PC's task would be to free them, with Skie just so happening to be numbered among them. ....

    Yes that option could be solution about problems with some voice actors.

    About Skie, I think that her rescue will fit perfectly with new BG2ee expansion, since Trent and co is not ready for BG3. BG3 is really hard to desing since history off Bhaalspawn is closed, but why not mess up with divine beings, further iritate Cyric hunt some deities, there is always drastic move in 5 ed Bhaal is back.
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    jsaving said:

    Or perhaps BG3's villain would be using the Soultaker as a battery to power a Sword-Coast wide capture of souls (a la Pillars of Eternity). Something like this could provide a reason for a hardy band of heroes to seek the Soultaker, even though they wouldn't necessarily care much about Skie.

    Given that Chris Avallone seems to be involved in some way, I wouldn't be surprised if the plot went in this direction. I could see Skie as a hook to get the protagonist involved in the first instance, but not significant to the main plot.

  • shawneshawne Member Posts: 3,239
    All this reaching over Skie. Skie. Talk about desperation.
    Vbibbismeagolheartscriver
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    shawne said:

    All this reaching over Skie. Skie. Talk about desperation.

    Eh, no, we don't care about Skie. What we are doing is interpreting what happened at the end of SoD. Unlike real life, things in stories don't happen at random. If you put a gun on the mantlepiece in act one, it is because you are going to use it in act three. If you preserve a body in a crystal casket at the end of SoD, it is because you intend to use it at some point in the future.
  • shawneshawne Member Posts: 3,239
    edited June 2016
    If you're going to cite Chekov's Gun, you'd do well to remember that there actually has to be an Act 3 for that process to work. Not only are you assuming SoD's loose ends were intentionally built into the story (as opposed to, say, being the product of sloppy writing, because that's certainly something that's never happened in a Beamdog game before), you're assuming BG3 is a thing that's definitely going to happen, and that against all marketing logic the plot of this long-awaited third sequel will be dependent upon events of and references to an expansion pack to an Enhanced Edition of the first game.

    And you know what? I'd concede that possibility if Beamdog had patched in so much as a line of dialogue in BG2:EE that actually references SoD. They didn't. Whether that's because of contractual obligations or just an oversight, the fact remains that it's easier to dismiss SoD as an irrelevant add-on than to assume it's the seeds of BG3, because there's a whole sequel that doesn't acknowledge it in any way.
    Vbibbiscriver
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    We already know (from Twitter) that Beamdog are working on BG3, so yes, Act 3 exists, at least in potentium.

    And BG2EE already references SoD. Events at Bridgefort are mentioned in a conversation between Rasaad and Jalhera. I think Neera has something to say about it too.
  • shawneshawne Member Posts: 3,239
    edited June 2016
    Fardragon said:

    We already know (from Twitter) that Beamdog are working on BG3, so yes, Act 3 exists, at least in potentium.

    We know no such thing. There has been no explicit confirmation that BG3 is in active development beyond Julius' usual Twitter hyperbole.
    Fardragon said:

    And BG2EE already references SoD. Events at Bridgefort are mentioned in a conversation between Rasaad and Jalhera. I think Neera has something to say about it too.

    Those references were in the dialog.tlk when BG2:EE launched, and are appropriately vague given that one of SoD's head writers wasn't even at Beamdog at the time. There are no references to Caelar, Skie, the Soultaker Dagger, the Umbral Accord, the SoD companions or any other plot-specific event that could be used as foreshadowing for the next chapter. In fact, one of those references actually contradicts SoD - Dennaton refers to you as the "Victor of the Dragonspear Crusade", which isn't quite a sobriquet you earn at the end of the expansion (since that makes it sound like you led the Crusade, rather than defeated it).
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    edited June 2016
    It takes a long time to create a computer game. The plot of SoD was written before BG2EE. Obviously some details changed during implementation.

    I expect the plot of BG3 was written (in outline, rather than in detail) even before that. BG3 has always been Beamdog's long term objective. The EEs where to generate the funds and learn the skills to make SoD, SoD was to raise the money and develop the skills to to make BG3.

    When you are in business you need to plan ahead.
    Post edited by Fardragon on
  • VbibbiVbibbi Member Posts: 229


    On top of that, whereas there's no logical reason that Safana has to be in your "canonical" BG1 party, it actually would make a lot of sense for Skie to be there, since she's one of the few NPCs from the original game not only to have a motive to travel with you, but also a more specific reason to want a reckoning with Sarevok, who's robbed her of her father and (indirectly) her brother. Throw in Entar's demand that you keep a close eye on her, and you've even got an in-game reason to force her into your SOD party, at least at first.

    While there's no reason for Safana to have been the canonical thief companion if Imoen is locked into dual-classing, I think there's even less reason for Skie to have been canonical. Having her in the party requires having Eldoth in the party, and the canonical party is good aligned. Eldoth is evil and Skie is neutral, so they are more suited to an evil-inclined party, or at best a morally grey neutral party. Plus, the canonical party already has two sets of pairs in Jaheira/Khalid and Dynaheir/Minsc. Adding Eldoth/Skie (and assuming Imoen is also present as a thief/mage) makes the party much larger than is allowable. I don't know if there is actually canonical detail on how many people were in the party, as we could assume the six person limit is just a game limitation rather than because Charname didn't want more than five people with them, but Safana is easier to implement since she isn't attached to anyone.

    Skie is also the last companion available to recruit in the game, making her the least likely addition to the party. Especially since she's a thief and her skills distribution is fairly poor to be useful in most situations, while we've had Imoen since the start of the game, and can pick up Safana even before going to the Nashkel mines.

    I understand why Skie was made an important character in SoD since she's the daughter of a duke and her death carries more consequences than most NPCs, but I don't think she was ever a particularly popular companion whom Beamdog thought fans wanted to have new stories revolve around.
    shawneJustLeft
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    edited June 2016
    Yes, unfortunatly the original post was based upon a misunderstanding of what people where suggesting.

    Most people don't think Skie will, or should be, brought back as a companion.
    Post edited by Fardragon on
  • CalemyrCalemyr Member Posts: 238
    Vbibbi said:

    Skie is also the last companion available to recruit in the game, making her the least likely addition to the party. Especially since she's a thief and her skills distribution is fairly poor to be useful in most situations, while we've had Imoen since the start of the game, and can pick up Safana even before going to the Nashkel mines.

    I understand why Skie was made an important character in SoD since she's the daughter of a duke and her death carries more consequences than most NPCs, but I don't think she was ever a particularly popular companion whom Beamdog thought fans wanted to have new stories revolve around.

    Absolutely agreed. On the previous page, @O_Bruce provided a perfect gif representing the idea that Skie was any sort of popular. She was whiny, spoiled, deluded, ineffective, not part of BG2, and available far, far too late to get a place in virtually any party. That she's actually someone I wanted in my party this time, that I was actively trying to recruit her at every encounter, that I was actually invested in her sincere yet fumbling attempts at maturity, that I want to see more of her, is an impressive feat.

    Again with the exception of M'Khiin, Skie was the most interesting bit of the game to me. She was actually trying, working to grow, excited at the idea of actually acting like an adult. She's bloody unique in that regard. Honestly. Who in this expansion actually evolves at all? Neera gets the revelation that will lead to her role as a civic champion in BG2, but she doesn't change at all here. Khalid gets a chance to show that he's actually a badass even if he's got the self-esteem of a dim glow-bug. But nobody is actually growing. Definitely not Caelar.

    I want to see Skie continue to grow. I want to see her fully mature into the kind of woman Entar always saw in her. The least memorable character in BG1 has now become the one that intrigues me the most.

    And that amuses me greatly. Kinda like Guardians of the Galaxy ending with a Howard the Duck cameo - as if to say "Aw, yeah. We're so good we could even remake Howard the Duck and you'd watch it. Face it, you just cried with a CGI raccoon over a tree with a five word vocabulary."
  • rapsam2003rapsam2003 Member Posts: 1,636
    edited June 2016
    Fardragon said:

    I would like to here why you think that could not possibly be a good story.

    It's a bad literary trope, that's why. There are way more interesting story ideas, presented on this forum no less, than bringing back Skie. Now, should we do something with the Soultaker Dagger in BG3? Probably. Should it involve bringing Skie back? Hell no.

    With the kind of storytelling that Gaider is famous for, I think we should expect better than a bad literary trope type of story.
    Fardragon said:

    (Oh, and by the way, it is BG3 (with 5th edition rules) not a BG2 expansion that Dave Gaider was hired for. This is known.)

    *rubs hands together* I CAN'T WAIT!
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    Fardragon said:

    Make the realms great again - leave Skie dead.

    Find a better story for bg3 or bg2ee Expansion than bringing back Skie. It's not too much to ask.

    I would like to here why you think that could not possibly be a good story. The only other suggestion I have heard is "the protagonist, who is no one in particular, hears of a great evil (unconnected in any way to anything that has happened previously) that they must track down and fight" which has to be the tritest, most unoriginal cliche
    I don't find Skie interesting. In BG1 she's a one dimensional whiny brat. Is there more to her? No, that's the joke (as they say).

    In SOD she's willfully ignoring everything you and everyone tells her to not get into trouble time and time again. Then shockingly she gets into trouble.

    Fast forward a couple hundred years and who cares about the undistinguished and unaccomplished daughter of a grand Duke? I know I don't.

    What is BG3? Is it an epic level adventure with superhero powers and level 9+ spells - do we care about a lowly daughter of a dead Grand Duke? No. If we are a walking god who has literally killed hundreds of people on his adventures, why is this one unaccomplished nobleman's daughter anything special? Especially when the evidence is so flimsy and considering what CHARNAME did with himself after being kidnapped by Irenicus (presumably saved the world again)

    Is BG3 a low level origin story building up to an epic plot? Hopefully but again would this Grand Dukes 200 year dead daughter be that big of a deal? Surely they can come up with something better.
    O_BruceJustLeft
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    Not an answer. Why do you think it's a bad trope? Come to think of it, what trope do you think it is? I would say it's the Snow White/Sleeping Beauty trope, which, far from being bad, is a classic.
  • CalemyrCalemyr Member Posts: 238
    Maybe it's just me, but I thought it was a good thing that Skie was still a hard-headed brat. I wouldn't have wanted her to make a sudden jump from "poor little rich fool" to "Mary Sue", who does everything right and listens to only the proper people and never whines in the face of hardship.

    This is still Skie, just one that's matured enough to know she's got some growing to do. She is constantly battling between her own romantic idea of adventure and her desire to to be more than she is. She has trouble following orders, but realizes she needs to. She wants to go out and do things, but admits she was wrong if she's called out on going AWOL. She is trying. In more ways than one. I'll take a character that tries and fails do their own flaws over a character that succeeds by suddenly losing those flaws any day.
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    She is trying. Trying to get killed and she succeeded.
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    If you hate her that much, that would make her the ideal villain for BG3....
  • Abi_DalzimAbi_Dalzim Member Posts: 1,428
    Fardragon said:

    If you hate her that much, that would make her the ideal villain for BG3....

    By that logic, I should fight Saemon Havarian...that doesn't sound too bad an idea.
    FardragonCalemyrJustLeftmf2112
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