There are so many ways to be bad in Baldur's Gate 3. Whether you're going for a full-blown murder hobo moment as a lone "hero" or an evil BG3 Dark Urge origin run, wickedness is on the menu and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. But not all roads to ruin are paved with equally ill intentions, and I think by romancing Minthara, I've become truly irredeemable.
In case you've forgotten about her already, Minthara is the drow paladin co-leader of the goblin camp you discover fairly early on in the game. She's not the nicest of people, as you might gather from how she intends to slaughter all the tiefling refugees in the Emerald Grove. This presents you with a pretty difficult choice to make: would you risk it all for the favor of one person? And just how bad could things get if you did?
In Her name
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In my last three Baldur's Gate 3 playthroughs, I offed Minthara without hesitation. This time, I handed over the Emerald Grove's location even faster. My companions at that point comprised Gale, Shadowheart, and Astarion, with Lae'zel still at camp – and it was only Gale who seemed opposed to the idea. Still, I brought him with me, kicking and screaming, as I launched the assault on Emerald Grove at the behest of one very pretty, very mean lady. It turns out my character would do anything for love, including mass murder.
Having convinced tiefling leader Zevlor of my intentions to help out in the fight against the goblins, I felt a twinge of guilt for what I was about to do. The tieflings had trusted me to take care of them, and here I was about to throw it all away. I started to doubt myself even then, but when Minthara communicated with me through our shared tadpole connection, gazing at me with her beautiful, hate-filled eyes, I knew I was done. I turned my sorcerer's staff on the tieflings and it was the definition of diabolical.
The good news is that it's much easier to kill a litany of Level 1 tieflings than it is to defeat Minthara's giant spiders. The bad news is that the game doesn't let you forget that what you're doing is pure evil. Most of the tieflings don't fight back. They just turn and run, screaming, until a goblin cuts them down to size. Battling the holier-than-thou druids sits a little easier on my conscience, but it doesn't change the fact that I just carved up a horde of innocents for no good reason. Because that's essentially it: I destroyed the Emerald Grove for somebody I'd just met, and sealed my fate in the process.
I can explain
It turns out my character would do anything for love, including mass murder.
Until I carried out the deed myself, I didn't understand why anyone would actually want to raid the Emerald Grove. Sure, siding with Minthara lets you maintain the charade of being a True Soul and recruit her later, but given the countless side quests missed, the loss of an Act 1 vendor, and the fact that I actually killed potential companion Wyll in the fray, it's hard to justify the slaughter of so many innocents if you're trying to do as much as a neutral-aligned playthrough.
Even Minthara questions it later – she was under the thrall of the Absolute, so what's your excuse for all that carnage? Nothing. That's the excuse. Or more precisely, the excuse is Minthara, who is arguably not even worth it if you're already playing as a Paladin.
The aftermath of my actions turned out to be even more sobering. Gale, noticeably distraught during the goblin celebration, began laying into me. He didn't like who I was turning him into, couldn't believe how much innocent blood he had spilled at my command. I decided to take after my evil drow girlfriend and lean into the cruelty. I told him I didn't make him kill anyone (though I totally did), and that he was free to leave if he really thought he could survive without me. I soon ate my words just as he had eaten all my magical items, though, because Gale promptly got up and left.
Karlach immediately tried to kill me when I bumped into her on the Risen Road. BG3's Halsin came to my camp for sweet revenge, so we had to put him down as well. After all that, I got to sleep with Minthara before she headed off again. My sparse ranks had dwindled down to just myself and three other cold-hearted companions until we rescued the dark elf from Moonrise Towers in Act 2 and welcomed her back to the party of sin.
It surprised me, but all this felt far worse morally than when I murdered Isobel during my Dark Urge playthrough. At least Isobel's death kind of made sense at the time. Now? I just killed a bunch of innocent folk to 'impress' a girl.
Becoming a True Soul of the Absolute purely to woo Minthara is the most selfishly evil thing you can do in BG3, but it does change the storyline in some marked ways. It all but locks you into an evil run, cutting some major storylines in exchange for the sharp-tongued drow, and that's a tradeoff very few will be willing to make. Despite all the good I've done since the Grove, masquerading as a True Soul cultist is a path that starts bloody and ends just the same. I don't think my hands will ever be clean, but at least I have Minthara around to grudgingly hold them.
Up until this moment, I really thought the Dark Urge BG3 story was the wickedest I'd ever felt in a video game.
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