The co-creator of the Dragon Age franchise has commented on the reaction to one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s main female characters, saying fans “always treated male characters with more forgiveness”.
This encounter was contrasted with the player’s first encounter with Morrigan, the much-loved Dragon Age character. “It does everything right to make you like the character, before showing you her darker side,” Clark said of Morrigan’s introduction in Dragon Age: Origins. “I don’t think they did this with Lae’zel.” Gaider dismissed this suggestion, saying “it truly does not matter”.
That’s the best part. Why would you like a character male or female that is openly hostile to you? You wouldn’t. That’s the point. She isn’t your friend (at least towards the beginning), you simply share a common goal with this githyanki. I wouldn’t be more forgiving if she was a guy. She’s still being an asshole to me. But it works especially for evil playthroughs as the relationship works totally fine as something that’s just transactional in nature.
You know who I couldn’t forgive? Alistair. All he needed to do was shut his damn jackass mouth for 10min. Really hard for me not to see him in Gale everytime I talk to him.
I have a soft spot for Lae’zel. I had it before I started learning more about her. Idk, I think early on I was just like this person is literally an interdimensional space pirate who has a culture literally alien to me. It made me more accepting of her.
I view her as more of an inter-dimensional space Nazi. She believes her race is superior to all others and is part of a conquering empire. Non-Gith are automatically considered slaves by her peers.
lae’zel is perfect - well written, well voiced, a bit tanky, adds tension. there’s nothing to forgive. boy gamers are notoriously sexist. this is their problem, not larian’s.
She might be my favorite of the bunch. I’m at a pretty cool part of her story, I won’t elaborate on, and I appreciate her abilities to lay waste to those that oppose her.
She’s a very well written abrasive, abusive, xenophobic, domineering space Nazi. Which, I mean, yeah cool I just don’t want to be around her. In fairness I hate Astarion more and find Shadowheart obnoxious to the point that I rerolled cleric just to not have her around. I’m 50-50 on Vampire Twink vs. Emo Priestess being more annoying to talk to, but at least twinky does his job well and provides some useful burst damage. My cleric does a much better job as a healer and support caster.
People don’t like lae’zel?? She’s by far my favorite. Please more strong women who want to fuck me.
My woman friend who I got to play a little co-op was also immediately like “she’s hot. I like her”, and found shadow heart to be a little whiney.
Right? She’s by far my fave so far. She’s not at all boring.
Yes Shadow heart is kind of making me regret saving her, maybe I should have tried stealing her Cube and telling her to fuck off. Actually my party probably does need a cleric. Then again I’m a druid so does it really?
Shadowhart is a weird character in general due to her reluctance to share and what her actual background is.
It’s gets so fucking weird once she admits to being a Sharran, but she’s so sweet and nice and every other Sharran we encounter is some fucked up Silent Hill monster of a person and she doesn’t even seem concerned by it.
In the House of Healing watching the Surgeon work
“Uh… Shadowhart? Is this really what Sharrans do?”
“Yeah, why?”
“It just seems… A little fucked up.”
“What’s so fucked up about inflicting pain and loss?”
Forgiving of what? Her dommy mommy sex scenes?
Her adversarial nature? My dudes, she is actually quite tame for a gith and if you play deeper into her story line, you’ll discover that and also get her to stop being a bitch to everyone she’s first meeting. Can’t blame her for being an asshole when she takes orders and worships an evil lich (whom she doesn’t even know is an evil lich) that raised her and others of her kind to be unquestioning killing machines.
Forgiving of what? Her dommy mommy sex scenes?
Not if you’re my little boss halfling. She’s a fighter with points in intimidation. Lae’zel tried the dom thing on me, and I said “That’s not how thing is going to work, you’re going to submit to me”.
Same here! I did have to burn a point of inspiration for a re-roll but it was so worth it!
The only reason why I don’t use Lae’zel is because Karlach exists and she’s a goddess (who also fills a similar party niche)
Lae’zel has been benched since I got Karlach. Karlach just hits so, so much harder and has so, so many hit points.
My first play-through I one-shotted Karlach while she was moping. Didn’t catch on she was a party member until later.
Well, you get to keep the OG Wyll appearance in that case!
I did!
Team Karlach forever! We just need a Bard so I can stake Astarion and never look at his smug, sadistic ass ever again.
There is a bard but she is easy to miss.
Alfira (the teeth-ling bard in the Emerald Grove) can join you. But you have to have the Dark Urge in your party and do a unique interaction that afterward will allow her to join you. In solo, the only way to have the Dark Urge is to select it as your PC.
Well…I don’t think so?
People love Morrigan from DA:O and she’s pretty much a jackass. Made me want to pull my hair out at times, but there’s a charm in that making a bad girl go soft in the end.
We shouldn’t just slap or imply a “sexist” label when people don’t like a character or not, although there’s always going to be a variance.
Is there a good example or reason they say this or are they just guessing?
Morrigan was hot, that’s why people loved her. We even see it in BG3, Shadowheart is as confrontational, especially towards Lae’zel but people are fawning over Shadowheart because she is hot.
But I think a lot of backlash towards Lae comes from people who don’t know D&D. They aren’t aware of how dangerous Mindflayers really are. And they also aren’t aware of Githyanki and their relationship with Mindflayers. If you take these things into consideration the actions of Lae become much more reasonable.
Shadowheart’s struggle are much easier to relate to. Which is part of the reason for people siding with her over Lae’zel.
With male characters people are more forgiving because they don’t consider a romance option.
I find Shadowheart way worse than Lizzy.
Though, I think the general statement holds true. This is absolutely not the first time this happens. A big example would be TLoU 1 & 2 with Joel vs Ellie. The sheer amount of Joel apologists that I had to talk with over the internet is immense, but Ellie doing equally shitty things is somehow seen as so much worse. It also shows that people don’t even want to bother looking deeper into those characters either. They’re just set in their ways & opinions, literally stuck.With male characters people are more forgiving because they don’t consider a romance option.
…do you think only straight men play this game?
No of course not. But the majority of the player base will be. Especially the one vocal about their opinion against a female character on Twitter.
Even more so back in 2009 when DA:O came out.
I guess with that said, what does the female demographic think about Morrigan/Lae’zel?
Even if they are a smaller portion, do they feel the same way or are they significantly differently?
Well I can’t speak to all women, but my wife instantly hated Shadowheart and was pretty cool with Lae’zel. Her reasoning seemed to be that she knew Shadow’s type and hated it, but Lae’zel was more straightforward and was less manipulative.
If you think a lot of women don’t have internalized misogyny, oh boy, have I got news for you.
Forgive her for what? Perfectly complementing my Lolth-sworn drow’s vibe? She’s the shouty armored one and I’m the one who wears a dress to a fight and is scarier when I’m quiet, and together we’re cutting a bloody swathe across the Sword Coast and looking great doing it.
Your comment is wonderfully colorful with your descriptions that I wish you would write more about your adventures and expand upon it in an actual D&D session.
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
Bruh,
BaeLae’zel is what I’d expect if they gave Morrigan from DAO a superiority complex.Still in Act 1 so I got more to explore, but she is by far my favorite character of the bunch so far along with Astarion.
They’re probably not wrong, but… Lae’zel seems pretty popular from what I’ve seen? Now that we’re out of Early Access and needling her is no longer the best amusement that can be wrung out of her.
Sadly this is continuously true, it is hard to write a female character that a mainstream audience will accept, because if they aren’t competent enough they are annoying, but if they are too competent they are a Mary Sue.
Sadly we see this kind of shit happen in real life all the time, if Donald Trump is screaming at people it just proves what a real man he is, but if in the same debate Hillary Clinton is talking in a normal voice, people ask her why she’s yelling.
She’s a hell of a fighter. So what if she worships a lich and wants to step on my testicals because I’m good in battle. We all have our quirks.
I love my girl squad! Lae’zel and Karlach are my BFF’s. Shadowheart just finally got back in my good graces and is finally allowed to come away from camp. Asterion is on a time-out. Ugh. Gale is Gale.
Removed by mod
Learning about his “secret” 3 days later I’m inclined to slap his hand and stuff him back into that portal with a broom on my next playthrough.
Lae’zel was my favorite origin character and who I ended up romancing and sticking with through my playthrough.
I wouldn’t have expected that going into it, but I found her writing to be probably the most complex and interesting arc out of everyone.
Whereas Shadowheart, who I went into it thinking would be the one I’d want to romance, was insufferable by halfway though and I was regularly wishing she had less relevance to the core plot.
I’m glad Lae’zel wasn’t male, and honestly I find the suggestion annoying given that the entire plot around the Githyanki is extremely focused on the matriarchal nature of the society.
More Amazons in our media, please.
Shadowheart and Lae’zel both annoy me and I really use neither if I can help doing so. Granted, I’m still getting to the side quests in Act 1 before moving on, so grain of salt, but they both currently occupy one end of an uninteresting extreme imo — Shadowheart the shrinking little flower that needs saving, Lae’zel the shallow, judgy barbarian I’m shocked to hear would have an arc.
I dislike her because she’s unendingly rude and violent for no reason, even when the occasion would go over better if she chose to cool it. If she were male, I’d still hate
herhim because it’s every time he opens his mouth. Nobody likes a dick bag.As noted in the article, Astarion IS pompous and mean, but the important part is he’s snarky instead of outright abusive, is rarely outwardly violent, and does what he does in a way that’s funny. I keep him on my team purely to hear him backtalk Wyll and reminisce about hedonism and do not get the sense at any point that he would hit me over the head with a club and drag me into a cave.
If he acted all rough and edgy and broody instead of intentionally looking for amusement via horrifying randos just to see what they do, I’d consider him the world’s most boring fanservice.
Anyway, the actual shining gem is Karlach and I’m increasingly in disbelief that I’ve seen no one singing her praises. I usually do find female characters underwhelmingly written and moments like Karlach are very needed reminders that I’m not some weird misogynist, I just hate bad writing and it’s everywhere. I fell INSTANTLY in love with that energy and remain so.
Ultimately, I may not like the one, but I am glad we’re able to do Warrior Female now and go all the way with actually making them warriors. More Amazonians in media!
One of the keys to writing a compelling arc is to start somewhere you can juxtapose against with where you end up.
Both of your characterizations of the characters may not remain the same as you play though.
Of course, the cool thing about what Larian did is that whether they do or don’t depends a lot on player interactions and choice.
You may have a very shallow Lae’zel by the end of her arc in your game depending on both certain choices and the roll of the dice.
