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fuckyeahbaldursgate · 6 months

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Viconia - Plot Support extraordinaire

Just to preface this as I don't want this to seem like I am hating on BG3 as a diehard fan of the original series because I really do love BG3. I've completed it twice now and think it will absolutely be joining my annual rotation of BG1/SOD/BG2 playthroughs but it has its problems, much in the same way that the originals themselves have problems as well.

So after my Sarevok post I wanted to treat Viconia to the same critical analysis as unfortunately I think she also gets the short end of the evil plot stick. I get it, evil characters can be hard to get right but again similar to Sarevok, in my opinion, her character regresses to evil Shar mook number one rather than actually being Viconia. Worse still she's entirely at the mercy of being wrapped up in ShadowHeart's backstory.

Anyway this is a bit of a deep dive into Viconia's issues in BG3. Spoiler warning for both BG3 and BG2.

1. No Grey DeLise.

Again, similar to Sarevok, another prolific voice actor that has done recent video game work seemingly not approached for the role. I can't help but think that some of this is down to the rushed nature of act three generally and Larian just having to get whoever they could for the job in the time that they needed it. Unlike Jaheria and Minsc there's no attempt to mimic her original VA or get someone who sounded like her so she ends up sounding completely and utterly different.

This version of Viconia sounds haughty and stuck up which while the original Viconia VA has a degree of arrogance, she is also pretty sultry. Haer'dalis even comments that she has 'the throaty voice of the most expensive courtesan' and Viconia deliberately plays on the stereotype of the sensual female drow with certain male party members for her own benefit e.g the male Bhaalspawn, Edwin, Sarevok and even Anomen (I cover this a bit here and here).

2. Her in game design...just isn't great.

Let's be honest, combined with the voice, Viconia's design basically makes her unrecognisable. She looks like a generic old drow lady to the point that I did have 'Is that meant to be Viconia?' moment when I first met her.

Now I appreciate there is minor controversy with Viconia's original BG2 portrait (which is probably the most recognisable image of her) because the artist actually used a famous porn star as the base for it.

For info, this was a common practice at Bioware at the time as they used to use lots of different images as bases for portraits. They finally got into legal trouble for it in NWN where due to various copyright claims they had to change quite a few portraits.

More recently, I think that Beamdog actually did quite a good job of recreating a faithful adaption of her original portrait in Siege of Dragonspear while presumbably navigating the original copyright issue.

In comparison to her BG3 portrayal, my first impression was she looks incredibly old. Now as far as I'm aware we've never been given a canon age for Viconia but we do know she was around for House DeVir being defeated by the Do'Urden house so she has to be at least 100 years old by the time of BG1... but her character level is between 2 and 6 (depending on the party's XP) so a relatively inexperienced cleric. With that in mind I definitely assumed she was on the younger side (maybe 200-300?). Either way 5e elves can live between 750 to 1000 years although there are instances in the Forgotten Realms books of drow living to over 2000. Now tack on the additional 120 years for BG3 in my mind it would definitely put her in the middle aged category but not necessarily anywhere near the end of her life. Critically she would be aging much slower than Jaheria but with those wrinkles she looks WAY older than her. I honestly feel cheated of an interaction between the two about how hagged and old Jaheria looks in comparison to herself.

In terms of her outfit, although initially she wears the Sharite mask and hooded outfit, which is good for concealing her identity, we eventually end up with Viconia in a spider adorned dress. This seems like a strange choice given the spider motif when she literally stopped worshipping Lloth for Shar - maybe she's being ironic? The lack of armour,when she's a cleric that knows there's a good chance she's about to have a fight seems kind of stupid. If you do choose to fight her, she then looks entirely comical in her light dress accompanied by an enormous oversized shield and mace.

For me though this really identifies her design problem: her leather armour was a critical part of her original design. Given that we only see portrait style headshots of BG characters, the decision not to include her leather corset with the three straps and the head band is really what makes her unrecognisable. It would be like removing Minsc's head tattoo or Jaheria's braids or Sarevok's armour (which even with all the problems I talked about in my post, at least he got to keep that).

My hope is that some enterprising modder out there makes a more BG2 accurate version of her in future. Larian, please give my lady her leather armour back or maybe even a justicar outfit!

3. Ignores her BG1/2 alignment, motivations and twists her original epilogue.

Now I do appreciate BG3 deliberately assumes that the events of BG1/BG2 are a little bit fluid, which Jaheria confirms this when she talks about the bards that tell stories of her slaying gods or bedding them depending on which one you listen to. But the game goes onto confirm certain events in Viconia's history that don't really make sense:

A.) The game confirms that Viconia did travel with the Bhaalspawn but not for the entirety of the game. Minsc informs you that after trying to dissect Boo she was expelled from the group. I have to admit this story didn't gel with me at all because it implies Viconia is some sort of chaotic evil idiot (reminder: Viconia is neutral evil with a 16 INT score and 18 WIS score in BG2) who would deliberately provoke a giant raging berserker man by murdering his beloved pet. Like that's the sort of thing I could see Xzar (who is completely and utterly mad) doing but not Viconia. What benefit would she get out of it? Maybe it would be a good tribute for Shar but that would be a pretty short term benefit. In fact in BG2 Viconia offers begrudging respect to Minsc for his effectiveness in battle, she knows he's powerful and she wants to be on the right side of that. Minsc for his part does what he does with many of the female characters, particularly in BG2 and makes her a proxy substitute for Dynaheir offering to protect her. That's not to say she won't insult people (Aerie and Jaheria or characters who she perceives as weak often get the brunt of it) but she's generally smart enough to stay out of an actual fight. Important to note that in any of NPC conflicts that end in a fight in BG1/2 (e.g. Kivan, Ajantis, Keldorn) it's never Viconia that's starts the fight.

B.) The Waterdeep cult.

In Viconia's epilogue, which you only get if you kept her for the end of Throne of Bhaal and you didn't romance her, Viconia goes on to do a few things which you can see below (obviously massive spoilers for BG2) :

So it feels like Larian has taken the first part of this ending but nothing else, which really leaves a lot of questions. We know Shar isn't entirely happy with Viconia based on her diary entries so why is Shar still giving powers to a woman that basically killed a whole bunch of her followers? Why is Viconia still working for a goddess that hates her? Why is she so accepting of Shar's plot to groom Shadowheart as her replacement? Why on earth hasn't Viconia got the fuck out of dodge, which is pretty much what she has been shown to do in the past? And this comes neatly onto my next point.

4. Viconia is just a plot device for Shadowheart.

I love Shadowheart and I love her arc but honestly Viconia being the Mother Superior just felt like a way of inserting her into the game in a way that didn't really fit especially when Viconia's diaries in BG3 show that she knows that Shar intends for Shadowheart to essentially replace her as one of her prominent followers/chosen. The whole plot ignores two critical points about Viconia and her backstory:

Firstly the reason Viconia left the Underdark in the first place was because she refused to sacrifice a child to Lloth and Lloth turning her brother into a drider after he saved her from being sacrificed. Now Viconia is many things, she's self serving, cruel and dedicated to her own survival at the expense of anything and anyone else (quintessential neutral evil through and through) but at the same time she threw away her position, caused the downfall of her house and got most of her family murdered to save a child. You're telling me she would then willingly go along with Shar's plan to deliberate plan to kidnap and repeatedly torture a child for YEARS whilst also training said child to replace her? My girl doesn't have many lines in the sand but harming children definitely seems like one of them. I actually wandered whether Shadowheart not liking to harm children / prefers saving them is not just about her being a secret Selunite but also a potential a hint of Viconia's influence.

Secondly, that plot seems to ignores Viconia's other primary driver, which is to survive: it's why she leaves the Underdark, it's why she travels with the Bhaalspawn, it's why she worships Shar and it's why she murders an entire cabal of Shar's followers after one person betrayed her. Now if we ignore that she has qualms about children, you're telling me that she would instead essentially train her replacement to be an amazing cleric who is 99% likely to murder her? I'm pretty sure Viconia would have tried to kill Shadowheart way before her becoming a justicar or simply skipped town as she has done before.

The alternative?

Personally I would have liked to have seen Viconia ultimately involved in a plot to overthrow the Mother Superior or maybe doing something even crazier like going after Shar herself out of revenge following her fall from grace after the events of the Waterdeep cult. Maybe she works with the Absolute to get her revenge and keep her divine powers - hell who better to help Ketheric with the Nightsong in Shar's temple then an ex priestess of Shar?

If not the Absolute then Shar's got plenty of enemies and Viconia has converted before. Maybe she could have joined the team to achieve a particular goal while giving fans of the original series the opportunity to have one of the original evil characters to join the crew. I would have loved to see the contrast with Minthara who is still fairly fresh from leaving drow society and a complete blunt instrument compared to Viconia's more subtle ways. Maybe Viconia would take the paladin under her wing, maybe introduce her to a new patron god (something I don't think is ever explained is how Minthara still retains her divine powers given neither Lloth or the Absolute are fueling them anymore). Shevarash the elven god of revenge, would be a fantastic fit for both of their back stories (which would also be a nice little throw back to Viconia's heated / sometimes fatal arguments with Kivan in BG1) presuming that Viconia could get over her disdain for the elven pantheon by that point in the timeline. The fireworks with Jaheria of course would be grand while Minsc I feel would be very conflicted given his mind's tendancy, as noted above, to sub in any female magic user as Dynaheir.

#baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate 2 spoilers #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #viconia #viconia devir #discourse #spoilers

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