#why would durge bother to do that when 'all father wants is death in droves death in numbers'!

[fandom-geek]

i think the thing that really gets me about pre-canon durge is their absolute sense of duty, and their utter isolation outside of the cult of bhaal.

most of the cultists seem eager to see durge upon their return, and one even says they were the first to feed him flesh. gortash tells them of an exhibition of a bhaalspawn's corpse and another bhaalspawn's creations and durge immediately plans to attack the hall of wonder to recover them. they then apparently entrust said bhaalspawn's corpse to sceleritas fel to "restore" through taxidermy. they deride orin for her artistry with corpses explicitly because "bhaal will never care" and because orin "[does] not understand lord bhaal".

even their infamous prayer for forgiveness is framed around their absolute submission to bhaal's plans, and the crime that requires forgiveness? admiring his rival's chosen. that's one line, and the next three paragraphs are swearing to carry out his plan exactly as they've been told to, all for his forgiveness.

hell, even their room reinforces this. orin has barely touched the place aside from installing her mother's corpse and her manifesto - and that is some of the only decoration. what was it before orin, an empty room with skulls, a bed, a desk, some chests and a wardrobe?

the durge didn't have any semblance of a life outside of bhaal, aside from gortash. and is it any surprise? the only other hint they ever had a life outside of the cult is the flashback of kid durge murdering their adopted family, all thanks to their father's urging.

bhaal even tries to force them back into isolation after they've been tadpoled by forcing them to kill alfira, and then trying to force a durge who resists him to kill their lover. if they continue resisting, bhaal kills them. bhaal will not allow them to have a life outside of him and, if it weren't for jergal, he would've succeeded.

#bg3 spoilers #the dark urge #honestly writing this all out it's weird that bhaal doesn't try to kill your party when you're at the temple #it'd be perfectly in line with everything else he'd done to durge up until that moment #also just makes me think of how sceleritas will tell an evil durge that the worst thing they've ever done #is giving a beggar a coin without asking for anything in return #ymmv and everyone has their own headcanons but pre canon durge was not a happy or enthusiastic participant as far as canon shows #which is reinforced by gortash saying you've always been better at controlling your urges than orin! #why would durge bother to do that when 'all father wants is death in droves death in numbers'! #honestly i think it's v reasonable to think that durge could've been tempted into bane worship given what little we know of them pre canon #anyway haven't played evil durge myself so very curious abt any insights from that route #baldur's gate