#wyll could be an interesting character if larian did treat him well but i still do love him

[crossdressingdeath]

Gale: It is no small thing to be a god's Chosen. Whatever life you once claimed to lead, it only follows from now on. Where Bhaal leads, you will be forced to go. You know this for yourself, of course.

Shadowheart: You accepted Bhaal, after everything we've been through? I can only hope this is part of some clever scheme I'm not privy to. Otherwise you might as well have stayed with the Absolute.

Karlach: Gods. You've really done it now, haven't you. I need you to finish what we started. I need you to remember me - our mission - long enough for that. If you try anything else, I'll kill you. Understand?

Lae'zel: Lord Bhaal's Chosen. You must think yourself mighty for it. Yet you were already mighty. And you would have been mightier still if you'd defied him and your 'urges'.

Wyll: By the gone gods. It isn't the blood you've spilled or the lives you've snuffed out that horrify me most. It's the pride you take in it, as if you've done all sixteen planes a great favour. When the Absolute falls, I wager our alliance falls with it.

Halsin: I had hoped you would shun Bhaal's overtures... but those hopes are dashed. To be a vessel for murder itself? I can think of few things less natural.

Did you guys enjoy Durge having nuance? Moral complexity? Interesting themes? Yeah, that's done now. If you become Bhaal's Chosen you are Evil McEvil doing Evil for the sake of Evil like the villain from a Saturday morning cartoon with more murder. I spared Isobel and took every dialogue option that followed the theme of "I'm scared and desperate and don't want to do this but Bhaal will kill me if I don't" and it is still this response. I genuinely don't know if I should be angry at the companions or Larian's writing team! In-universe Bhaalspawn don't seem to be treated great by the people of Faerûn (After the Bhaalspawn reveal Halsin mentions that if you tell the wrong people what you are you're liable to get lynched and I know BG2 mentions witch hunts, although I don't know the details since I... haven't reached BG2 yet) and the companions all either lived through the Bhaalspawn crisis or likely grew up hearing stories about it (if Astarion's comment that more parents scare their kids with stories about Bhaalspawn than about vampires is to be believed, anyway), so it wouldn't be strange for the companions to believe on at least some level that Bhaalspawn are inherently evil! It would make sense for them to subconsciously be holding Durge to a much higher standard than they do the other companions and as a result responding much worse to them making the evil choice (even though unlike the other companions their life is explicitly on the line if they refuse)! And that is what they're doing; I don't have the companion reactions to every bad personal quest ending, but no one's saying their alliance with ascended Astarion will end when the brain falls and as far as I'm aware there is no other origin quest ending that will lead to a companion trying to kill the character whose quest it is the way Jaheira, Minsc and I believe potentially Wyll do with Chosen Durge. But all of that makes sense and fits with the lore if we assume that the companions are all assuming Durge became Bhaal's Chosen because Bhaalspawn are evil regardless of what Durge says. However if that is the case the fact that there's never a chance to get into it is a massive misstep, because it turning out that all your friends who insisted that you being Bhaalspawn doesn't have to change anything do in fact think you are inherently more evil than the rest of the group is... a huge deal, actually! I mean, I guess you could say that it's because Bhaal is the group's direct enemy or Durge was his Chosen before this, but none of them mention that aspect of it at all so it's hard to say whether or not we're supposed to take it that way (and even if we are that opens up a whole other can of worms regarding Larian's failure to engage with how awful it must be for Durge to have to fight their father and old master, even though "it's really hard to face your abuser" is a central theme of most of the companions' quests).

But of course the lack of discussion means it's also possible that this is just Larian forgetting that their game is supposed to have moral nuance again. Maybe they've forgotten about all the chances they give Durge to be scared and desperate and only obeying Bhaal because they feel like they have no other choice and decided that the only reason why anyone's Durge would ever become Bhaal's Chosen is because they really like killing. In general they seem to regularly forget that Durge's relationship with Bhaal is also part of the cycle of abuse theme and treat their choices regarding him as a straightforward, binary moral choice. It's entirely possible that the companions' refusal to consider that maybe the choice between serving Bhaal and dying wasn't as simple for the person making it as it is for the heroes on the outside who don't actually play any part in it is actually just Larian forgetting that it's not that simple and the whole thing isn't supposed to say anything about the companions' views on Durge. But it's impossible to tell with how slapdash Larian's act 3 writing and especially Durge's writing is.

Also, I didn't know where else to put this, but Halsin calling Durge becoming a vessel of murder "unnatural" makes no sense. I mean... that's what they are. Even redemption Durge is called murder incarnate by the netherbrain (although only if you side with the Emperor). As a Bhaalspawn and more specifically a piece of Bhaal's own gore given life they very much are a vessel of murder and always have been. It's another moment where I don't know if we're supposed to see this as Halsin having Opinions on Bhaalspawn and their ties to their father or the writers not really thinking about what it actually means to be connected to a god of murder. The whole thing is just a real mess.

#bg3 #durge