#bhaal doesn't need or want a child. he wants a vessel of his will. a tool to execute his plans

[maegalkarven]

Like, no one argues with the fact that pre memory loss Durge is evil.

We are simply interested WHY they're evil.

And how much work seemed to go into making them that way.

#bg3 spoilers #dark urge #if you are born to be the murder incarnate the destroyer of the world #and raised that way #praised for that and steered away from any other path #if you are the blood of the good of murder #how much who you are is your responsibility and how much it's the result of you being made/molded a certain way? #the reason i never chose to accept Bhaal's gifts not bc “evil choice” #but because Durge once again loses their autonomity #they're back into the fold #father's perfect little weapon #bhaal's tool bhaal's SLAVE #do you think bhaal needed a child made only out of his flesh to be able to fully control them? #bc i think he did #'bhaal doesn't need us to think he needs us to kill' oh durge baby you said it yourself #bhaal doesn't need or want a child. he wants a vessel of his will. a tool to execute his plans #durge's opinion never mattered them bring their own person was never permitted #only the blade what deals bhaal's will #only that and not a person #the personhood is something what has been denied to durge from the very start even if sceleritas makes a good job at pretending otherwise #'the world is your playground' he says bc he needs durge obedient. and if durge think he has a choice #well let them

[mightymizora]

So @y-rhywbeth2 asked about Manva and views on motherhood after reading Blood and Bone, Bone and Blood

And I’m gonna use it as an opportunity to dive into a bit of Manva lore! Because reproductive stuff and parent stuff is really key to her.

It's going under the cut for length and for discussions of bodily trauma, bhaalist style incest and breeding nonsense, and some dub-to-non-con stuff.

Manva has a complicated relationship to the idea of motherhood (ha, what an opening sentence.) There's a great deal of thematic work around the idea of the mother in Blood and Bone, Bone and Blood and honestly there could have been a lot more in there that I ended up cutting. I'll come to that later, but let's start at the top.

Manva like most Dark Urge's that adhere to canon was not born but made, but unlike some in canon she also didn't have proper foster parents - she was left at the temple of Ilmater and due to the fact she didn't cry and had red hair (red being a sacred colour) and they had just taken in a woman who had lost her baby, they took her to be a gift to the temple. The woman nursed her, but then left again to rejoin her husband and left Manva behind. Manva grew up being told that she had been wetted with the tears of grief and swallowed the pain from her wet nurse. Everything in the temple of Ilmater conditioned her to understand taking on sacrifice, and she saw herself as absorbing the sadness of her wet nurse/mother figure so that she could leave and live her life again.

Then when she goes to the Bhaalist temple aged 13, after coming into her majority (getting her first blood which incidentally is when Sceleritas is born from her in a quasi birth from her period) she steps into a new world again, where she is told about her holy mission and purpose, and dedicates herself to it. But Bhaal does not rule with the carrot only. He is always keen to stir up competition in his ranks. "Grandfather" Sarevok tells Manva when she is still very young that should she fail, should she fall, he is tasked with filling her with the next generation of spawn, making her an endless vessel and it understandably fills her with fear, especially with the recent horror of Sceleritas crawling from her fully formed (I'm still undecided whether this is Bhaal's instruction, or a mind game, but for this purpose it doesn't really matter.) But it's also the first time she's ever considered sex, and with her understanding that she must take on great sacrifice, she also begins to slightly fetishise this fear. The idea of being desired and sacrificing her body in that way is a little sexy, even if the reality is not. Thanks, religious trauma. This is combined with her relationship to the then chosen, Torlin Silvershield, makes for a complicated time in her life.

Torlin is quite a traditional Bhaalist in a lot of ways. A man of means, connected and erudite, whose Bhaalist life is almost a fun club away from his real life. He is handsome and charming and belongs to a world that neither Manva or Orin understand at this point in their lives. He has his own family, his own life away from them. Both of them want to impress him and, vain man that he is, he indulges this. Eventually Manva wins out for his favour during her time as the Butcher of Baldur's Gate, but it is a bitter win; she wants him to be a mentor, a father-figure, and he sees the purest Bhaalspawn as a prize potential mistress, and his sexual attentions are devastating to her.

When he does lose his status, and when she can finally make decisions for herself, she decides to maintain her perceived celibacy (after all who needs sex when you have Bhaal's gift of ecstatic murder, and also the things she does to Orin in a fit of anger don't count.) She does right until she meets Gortash. And, I guess, she maintains it, as she does not allow anything that would risk getting with child, and he doesn't do anything to her that might risk her losing control of her strength and accidentally killing him. His desire for her is both tantalising and terrifying to her. He is a great risk.

Then Ketheric comes into the picture and all of these threads pull apart.

Ketheric can see the growing intimacy between her and Gortash, and he needles at it softly because he sees how ridiculous it is. These are broken children who are playing up for his attention, and it's pathetic to him. She's never really seen a person who loved their child before - Torlin was the closest, but he kept his children and life so far away from them - and she is fascinated by it. He would do all of this because he loves his daughter. All of it! He would become undead, he would sacrifice his very soul. She's envious, and wants his attentions as the father figure, but it also makes her think for the first time about what it would be like to choose to have a child. Around this time Gortash is also considering whether he will take a patriar wife pretty much only to have children and a legacy, and they are bringing back Isobel. It makes her have the first thread of desire for something truly for herself. Why do they get the opportunity to feel that feeling, and she doesn't?

I think, whether she realises it fully or (likely) not, that there is a part of her that would like a simple life that she has constantly been denied. The opportunity for love, and to nurture life, to feel secure and to feel seen. She has been a servant to others' needs her whole life, even before she knew she was the Bhaalsdaughter, and by the time she instigates the most toxic sexual relationship of all time with Ketheric (daddy AND daughter issues? literally pulling each other apart during and after? All of the damage caused by Bhaal, Sarevok and Torlin and the desire she cannot have sated by Gortash all coming out at once? Delicious) the strain of that and the desire for more is starting to show.

In the end, it is the Netherbrain that gives her that opportunity. The Brain reads her deepest desire and agrees to be the surrogate for her. The tadpoles will be birthed across the world, and she will be the all-mother to all the creatures it creates. Manva is part of her design, the co-parent, the nurturer of the end of everything, so that something may be born anew.

#okay this is long and rambling but! #manva warhelm