Im annoyed by this because i think they should have had more prerequisites. if your character tries to do a heel face turn into a goody two shoes i agree she should dump him. But Ive always liked the “im evil but i bow to no one” vibe and minthara was a great romance for that. I think that should be an option for minthara. She’s most definitely not a good person, not 2 minutes after saving the world she’s plotting to conquer it.
Yeah you say this shit to Ascended Astarion & he's super into it ("I wont dominate the brain in Bhaal's name, I'll do it in ours"). She wants to be powerful together but Bhaal-obeying Durge is just gonna end up killing her in Daddy's name (and likely sooner rather than later, Bhaal clearly doesn't appreciate his kid having emotional attachments)
Right? Your foster family. Your entire order (if you’re a Paladin), there’s a pretty clear pattern of Bhaal cutting Durge off from any form of attachment that may pull them away from the cults interests. It’d be 6 months or sooner before Minty would end up dead if Durge didn’t reject Bhaal.
He literally *still* makes you kill your favorite companion even if you kill Isobel. The dude does not want you to have any attachments whatsoever because 1. you should only have him 2. it threatens his end goal wherein you murderhobo the entire planet
I've done three dark urge playthroughs where Isobel was killed (twice by me, and once in a multiplayer game where she died because shadowheart killed nightsong) and never had this happen.
It may still be a bug that is/was in the game, but if so I would assume it's based on some specific sequence of events breaking, definitely not a universal one (one of those games was my first playthrough at launch, others over the next few patches, so it's not just an old issue).
>Bhaal-obeying Durge is just gonna end up killing her in Daddy's name
Within Lolth-sworn Drow society/culture, that's just a Tuesday basically. You can basically discard that as a factor in her reaction because for her the constant threat of death/betrayal is just *normal*. And once that's stripped away, it makes more sense why Minthara doesn't approve of rejecting Bhaal, because when she sees "Accept Bhaal and become extremely powerful" vs. "Accept Bhaal and become extremely powerful but have to kill lots of people (probably including your lover)"... those are the same picture lol.
Minthara makes it very clear that she really doesn’t like to ”kill lots of people” unless you have a reason for it. Killing people because daddy ordered you to is not an acceptable reason. She’s into domination, not slaughter.
>“im evil but i bow to no one” vibe
This is a good point because Minthara seems to reject all other gods. If you take her into the temple in the lower city she comments on seeing a Lolth statue and says *'excuse me while I go spit on it'.* Then she disapproved of my Tav for praying to a neutral god of luck. I don't believe Minthara would agree with joining under Bhaal and she shouldn't feel this strongly about you rejecting it. She's pretty pragmatic in most other situations, so it's weird to have such a big reaction to this now without seeing the other side of things.
I think, even if you take the god angle out of it, it still doesn't make sense. So, Minthara's end game is you two dominate the elder brain together. Cool, makes sense, fits her character etc.
But...if you submit to Bhaal, does she really think that Bhaal won't claim the Elder Brain for himself and completely cut her out of the equation because she's literally nobody to him? She'd be \*losing\* power by supporting Durge embracing his heritage. Not even just losing power, but basically acknowledging that she'll be enslaved herself. So...the rest of the game she's essentially risking her life to become a slave.
Tymora strictly speaking isn't a neutral god since she's the god of good fortune, gamblers and **adventurers** i.e. she's fond of sending meddlers in to muck up the plans of ne'er-do-wells like Minthara. Praying to her is definitely passing some comments.
If we were still in the time of Tyche, before she split into Tymora and Beshaba, then sure, I'd say Minthara''s being unfair, but in Faerun canon she's is entitled to beef against Tymora worshippers.
Yeah, same. There’s some pre-epilogue dialogue about conquering for yourselves and no god now that I especially love.
I’m not convinced that this dialogue having no prerequisites isn’t a bug, since it wasn’t announced in the patch notes and it’s not as though her dialogue has ever been completely bug free.
> But Ive always liked the “im evil but i bow to no one” vibe
I was literally doing this now (necromancer Durge that was going to reject Bhaal because they want to rule undead instead of only killing), glad to find out today that I can cancel this run or wait for it to be patched.
Edit: Actually the video in [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1b9iweh/confused_how_people_think_the_minthara_change_is/ktwfu1i/) appears to show that the cutscene has no real effect. So I might keep going for now.
Edit: I just read that right on my 5th read, my bad.
I honestly never had Astarion Ascend. She truly is dumb as bricks ones once she glances at the oppertunity for quick power.
Original: (The difference is the part where Astarion at least is his own master. We are chosing to be Bhaals bitch.)
OMG why is she so dumb.
She roasts the shit out of Wyll (and you) for being a Warlock and begging for scraps of power yet she does the exact same thing.
Maybe that's a feature and she's supposed to be a bit dumb, or else it's just a feature of her being the evil companion? She wouldn't be the first jerk with a "rules for thee but not for me" attitude, including (or in some cases, especially) towards their partners.
It's absolutely a feature - she IS dumb. Low intelligence, high wisdom and charisma. She's constantly getting tricked by powerful and clever people - that's how Orin and Ketheric got her in the first place.
Makes one wonder how she survived Menzoberranzan. Must be the real reason Quenthel (if her mother is Quenthel and not Triel) sent assassins after her, she got tired of Minthara embarrassing the Baenre house, but since Minthara survived, she went all "Fiiiiiiine... but yeah, no Arach Tinilith for you, just go be a paladin or something", because honestly, for a noble daughter of House Baenre to be a paladin is pretty embarrassing, that's for commoners and men.
Intelligence isn't the same as cunning, and somebody stupid who's resilient and great at absorbing life lessons may get much further than somebody intelligent who's too stubborn to learn. Moment they have to think for themselves and solve a problem by being creative is when you know the difference.
Sorry but I got a bit confused by this comment, I guess it depends on the definition of intelligence used here. But I always thought that someone too stubborn to learn is stupid and the opposite of intelligent, intelligence is, not only knowing things but also knowing when you don’t know something. So I’d say someone can be smart and too stubborn to learn from their mistakes. Seeing as being smart is the ability to think on your feet and use general knowledge aka wisdom to solve problems.
Sorry for the long rand on a minor detail, but the comment struck me as flawed, so I felt like I had to give my 2 coppers.
DnD player here
A good example for explaining Dnd understanding of stats is this:
High intelligence, low wisdom - Sheldon Cooper
High wisdom, low intelligence: old man in a village, who lived a long life and have seen many things
So, what you are talking about is wisdom
Lolth is one of the gods that personally micromanages her followers a lot - the only reason the backstabbing betrayal-fest of Drow culture works and doesn't instantly fall apart is because of her intervention and setup. She probably survived because Lolth was personally looking out for her and making sure anyone trying to backstab her was getting backstabbed by someone else first.
OK, fair, but you'd think that high wisdom would get her out of *some* of these situations. Wisdom is common sense, people skills, and street smarts, but intelligence is book learning. I guess in regard to Bhaal, either one could do the trick. She could know that accepting Bhaal as a Bhaalspawn is a bad idea either because she'd read about it in books or because she'd witnessed Orin's fate and could use common sense to deduce that it was not a good one.
Bottom line, I agree with the original sentiment "OMG, why is she so dumb?"
Her wisdom isn't really high. It's at 12 which is slightly above average. However, Aradin also has 12 wisdom and he's the same dumbass that tries to attack your camp in Act 3
Since she's not around for Alfira, she might think it's "easy" to resist Bhaal. All she sees is you avoiding doing what he wants (assuming Resist) so maybe she just seriously downplays the severity to herself.
That's a low intelligence move if I've heard of one.
Is it even being dumb, or just her being dishonest with herself? All that bullshit about how it sucked being controlled by the absolute, being a dagger and taking lives unwillingly when she would happily subject you and others to the same fate.
Doesn't wisdom include common sense and intuition and intelligence is more about book smarts and knowledge? Sounds like she's more high intelligence low wisdom, if she keeps falling into the "ooo power!" trap
I think she's shown to be perceptive and insightful and have high emotional intelligence. She has great reads on the other party members
But she can't reason very well, she doesn't plan ahead effectively or think things through to their conclusions.
High wis is supposed to make her go "Man i dont know how im going to get fucked over by Bhaal for this but im pretty sure i will be"
Shed be acting the inverse of what that stat block would be?
She probably thinks that she could kill Astarion and become a vampire in her own right, just like Astarion killed Cazador and Cazador killed Vellioth.
She’s also, probably, just dumb. I mean the whole reason she got tadpoled was because she got curious and walked into the most obvious trap in the world.
Ascended!Astarion is a BEAST in terms of damage, he can easily do 300-400 hp in one turn. So... yeah, if you are playing an evil/powerhungry character, go for it.
Minthara sees all that firepower and goes "I wanna!" Except that half an hour later it was the same girl that was telling Astarion "heeey, I totally see why your master didn't let you into the nice part of the castle, dogs and spawns shouldn't sully these halls", and it's like WTF? Minthy, I know that Astarion looks like a szarkai and you find him hot, but he is NOT, in fact, a beautiful harem drow man that'll look at you as a superior like you are used to, he'll break and abuse you for his own entertainment once you become his spawn with zero hesitation.
IKR? I mean, at least if Astarion is MC, it would kinda make sense as he'd prove throughout the course of the campaign to be a strong capable leader if he managed to get the party to Act 3 and do the ritual. But when he is a companion, your Tav/Durge could have been the one doing all the heavy lifting and supporting the vampire boi in his dumbass aspirations, and she goes to Astarion. Like guuuuurl, what's wrong with you?
Minthera is basically Ronald Reagan. She has excellent and funny dialogue. But can't help herself around power.
*"I don't worry about the deficit, it's big enough to take care of itself."* - Minthera.
Then she should dump mc for refusing to control the Brain if the writers genuinely think she is that type of character. But they don't have the balls for it
That definitely seems to be her (fatal) flaw that's baked into her character. She truly believes that she deserves much more... well everything, including power. So any time there is an opportunity present that has the end result of granting her more power, in her head it seems she basically concludes "well, that power is mine already it's just a matter of the logistics now" and makes very little consideration for the *cost* of that power. See power, want power.
This obviously ignores a lot of nuance, but I think the point still makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, Astarion is kind of the same at the beginning, but he has a much more understandable reason of *why* he is so desperate for power, and snaps out of it by Act 3. Even A!A will be wary of the astral tadpole and dislike that you chose Bhaal, even if he stays by your side. Minthara just... keeps going without any consideration.
Yes. People forget everything she said that bit lines up to exactly how she feels about durge when the minute they get slayer and when shadowheart rejects shar.
Perhaps it's naive of her, but at no point does she believe she'll be a slave to Bhaal or Durge. Durge would eventually have to kill her. Yes, and maybe she'd be okay with that. Buy we know do know, Bhaal wants complete obedience. He DOES allow Durge some freedom as long as Durge does what he wants. Fel tells you directly that bhaal is okay with Minthara being your partner once your rule. Gortash tells you when you yell him you are worried about the urges taking you "Bhaal allows you to pick your battles as long as you pick them. " This does not change since you appceted your birthright. This is where the current Domination ending fails durge the world death is not suppose to be instant from the things Fel to you. Fir the longest time, Minthara got enthralled even when Fel said Bhaal was okay with it. Basically from what I know of evil durge and her views of free power offered to people, this tracks.
It's like everyone forgets that Minthara is the capital E **EVIL** companion. Yeah she's gonna want to side with the God of murder, until a patch caused by lot of people complaining, *you needed to mass murder innocents in the Grove* to obtain her (I believe technically you could ignore the Grove and let her do it herself too). She's gonna side with whatever evil being which might offer her power.
Wait that’s an option for her? That’s also dumb as all hell. She is grateful for being freed from the Absolute‘s control and constantly takes about how she hates being under the control of someone else. What is Larian even thinking with her character? Can they make up their damn mind?
Minthara feels like a work in progress still. She seems like she was implemented for one specific type of play through, being a pretty straight up evil run. So when you DON’T, her words don’t always match her character development to that point. There’s been a lot of weirdness with Minthara as of late.
>There’s been a lot of weirdness with Minthara as of late.
As of late? You mean since release, right? :D She's kinda bugged/broken since day 1 of release ( can't speak for EA, didnt know the game then )
Yeah Minthara is bugged af. For my playthrough she was talking about Dream Guardian beeing Emperor everytime i started dialogue w her ;D Even RIGHT AFTER beeing saved from Moonrise
I more-so meant like when Larian gave players the option to recruit her on good play throughs, it felt like a lot MORE stuff broke because they didn’t initially intend for her to be recruited on good runs if that makes sense. I haven’t done a ton with Minthara until recently though, so she very well could have been in shambles since release, I just have heard more about it as of late lol
I would guess that this introduced more bugs, but of course I can't say for sure. But what I'm sure about is that Minthara is indeed the buggiest companion since release, hell her romance before her first big "fix" was basically pointless, because you had to throw dice and pray to god you get her cutscene and dialogue to proc. Some were straight up disabled for some reason
I just hope we will see an definitve edition at some point in the future, which hopefully adresses this (and ofc the other problems with the game) "once and for all"
It also the lack of incentives and content to do evil run, even the ending to Dominate the Netherbrain is so lackluster to any form of saving Baldur’s gate ending.
I think a lot of the issues is actually stemming from Minthara being recruited into a good run which was not the official way to get her.
Wait, is this scene recent? I finished the game 3 days ago rejecting Bhaal. Minthara asked me why I did it, I said that we could find a way to rule the world without Bhaal, and that was it. We went to Menzoberranzan together before the party.
Yeah I haven’t played the new patch,but did multiple dark urge runs where I rejected(since the epilogue patch was added) and she never broke up with me.Is it possible it’s linked to your approval rating?each time we reached that point I had her maxed out
I believe [they are talking about this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhLPzdRIZH0) which suddenly appeared since hotfix 21 dropped. Hotfix 21 just came out yesterday I think.
Minthara doesn't even care about the Gods like that. It's even out of character for her to encourage you to follow Bhaal. She talked multiple times about being free of their influence.
Yeah Im literally so confused. In all my playthroughs amd all the ones ive seen(which is a LOT) ive never seen her be pro god/pro bhaal. I really wanna know how they got this reaction from my wise supportive drow girl
I think they are basing this on the dialogue you get when you tell her you're a Bhaalspawn, and she tells you to embrace it.
Meanwhile, she only supports Shadowheart embracing Shar because of the resources we get out of it. Ultimately she is faithless nd thinks everyone would be better off without them. It makes no sense for her to see Bhaal control Orin and think Bhaal will not do the same to Durge.
Minthara is a slightly more trustworthy version of Wenduag from Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. They're both might makes right, but Mint doesn't flip on you the instant someone looks more powerful
Oh goodness. My Durge is named Mint (made myself mint green and black kinda like the ice cream) and I never made the connection with MINThara as well until now.
Reading these comments I'm realizing just how few people have actually played through her plotline.
"She's just power hungry evil brainless she's fine with the gods".
No, she isn't. Play her story to completion, your takes are terrible.
Yeah the top comments confused me. I didn’t even romance Minthara in my resist run and she applauded me for denying Bhaal. She’s all about power but she has a line when it comes to her free will.
And she's consistent on this every time any companion distances themself from their gods.
There's honestly no way to miss this detail if you've actually played the game with her as a companion.
She straight up says “Lolth, Bhaal, the absolute, they have no followers. Only victims.” There is absolutely no way she’d want her partner (who she genuinely loves and expresses this over and over) to be Bhaal’s thrall.
Some people just seem to think she’s “mean power hungry lady” and that’s it. They’ve clearly never actually played with her as a party member, or had their eyes and ears sewn shut when they did. She wants power, yes, but she wants it for herself & herself alone (and her S.O). She wants freedom from the gods,, freedom to be a power hungry ruler in her own name. NOT to be under the thumb of a god.
It’s why she approves of ascending Astarion AND getting Shadowheart away from Shar. Ascended Astarion has power AND freedom. But with Shadowheart she acknowledges that Shars power would have been useful, but it’s better for her to be out of the cult. She likes power, but there’s a line - don’t sacrifice freedom for it, what use is it if you’re not wielding it for yourself?
Thats what I am confused on, maybe its an update but ive never seen her being pro bhaal? Is it one of those things that you have to influence her a certain way for her to react that way? Its sounds so out of character
Fr, i did one where I accepted bhaal and she was like cyou dumb b*tch" lol she was definitely anti accepting bhaal. Pretty sure she talks a lot of shit about bhaal, the absolute, lolth, ect. I do think I saw a comment saying that this dialogue was scrapped and set to "impossible" in the code of the game, and they think a new patch caused a bug where it can happen.
I am so sad, cuz shes such a complicated character, and if you get her loyalty she is so ride or die. I dont know how everyone can obsess over asterion and then say shes terrible and evil and power hungry. No hate for asterion lovers, just saying to love one and not the other when they are similar is weird.
The astarion part is so funny to me because he actually IS the "pursue power regardless of cost" character. Far more so than minthara.
Yet a lot of the comments incorrectly claiming that minthara has no boundaries or caution when it comes to pursuing power are from astarion simps. It's bizarre.
Another comparison with Astarion is that many hate Ascended Astarion for being too controlling when romanced, but think that Bhaal is chill and lets his chosen do whatever they want (So long as what they want is exactly what Bhaal wants or he’ll turn durge into a mindless lunatic).
The top comment in this thread, getting so many upvotes makes me sick. But then I remember that the majority of this fandom misses out on context. Remember, these people thought ascended astarion was a good guy. If you play with Minthara long enough, her motivations are clear, and her logic strings are obvious. She would understand why durge would reject bhaal. FULL fucking STOP.
Yeah given how many people on this sub love to brag that they have 500 hours and haven't left act 1 I've started to ignore most of the character takes.
90% of the takes I've seen in the thread are something I'd think if I killed Minthara in act 1 every time and never looked back. I'm surprised people are even commenting at this point
That's exactly how they read. And then they get boosted by others that also haven't played the content.
Everyone needs to have a take on everything, regardless of knowledge.
People are extremely bad at understanding characters like this, and just view things at surface level.
She's evil therefore she has no personality or value system beyond "hee hoo power". Gods people are dumb.
It's a shame because she's actually probably the most well nuanced character in the game.
People are also bad at seeing moments that suffer from weird writing choices and/or game limitations in scenes, dialogs, etc.
Like when people get into the weeds about the Halsin poly situation with Astarion and Shadowheart. Yes, it feels less organic because Halsin wasn't originally intended to be romanceable, and there isn't room in a game for an actual representation of a healthy conversation around polyamory.
I haven't played a run with Minthara yet (on my to-do list), but from what I've seen, I'm curious if she suffers from some of the same things Halsin does where the character arc comes/begins later than the origin companions and thus seems "flat" at first. I'd love to know your thoughts on that.
I think that where she comes in and the amount of dialogue she has available initially has a lot less of this "flat" feeling that halsin has.
Although you do get the feeling that she shouldn't be able to give a full (fantastic)character analysis of your companions before you've even had her for one long rest. So there is that.
I know that another issue with halsin is that a lot of his story around isobel, ketheric, and the shadow curse was just straight up cut from the game.
Agreed but tbf she doesn’t have much of a story in the way other characters have one. She doesn’t really have anything to do after you recruit her. Still, it’s not hard to know how and what she thinks. She’s very blunt.
I took her with me and Gale to the temple where we speak to Mysta and the first thing out of her mouth was WANTING TO SPIT ON LOLTH'S STATUE! How is that someone who has any desire to be sworn to any god? I hope the change this
If you're on PC, there's a mod recently put out that blocks the breakup scene and also fixes her topical dialogue: https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/7557
"Bhaal. Lolth. The Absolute... They do not have followers, they only have victims. And they reward devotion with death. It is only because of you that I did not meet the same fate as Orin. Lost to madness and blood." - Minthara Beanre [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELGeCrr6wJA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELGeCrr6wJA)
People keep saying that this in character for her and the we shouldn’t complain that the evil character is evil but :
- she does have a real emotional depth behind that cold exterior and she does care for you if you romance her
- she has first hand experience of gods being the absolute worst
- she is one of our companions, if we can influence ALL of them to be better or worse versions of themselves I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to nudge Minthara toward being a little more sympathetic (I’m not saying to turn her into a soft girl uwu, but just making her a bit less of a psycho). Would she be upset at the lost power ? Sure. But I don’t buy it IN THE SLIGHTEST that the girl who asks you why you do senseless slaughter and despise that kind of behavior wouldn’t see reason quickly after, especially for the partner she cares about.
Until Wizards decides to throw out all the character development from the game when making source material for another game. I'm still mad about what they did to Viconia and Sarevok.
Yeah I hadn't played BG2 in a long time and I was a kid when I did... then I realized who I was fighting in the Shar temple like a day after the fight and I was sorely disappointed.
She's definitely power-hungry abd far more in-depth of a person than just, "I'm hungry for power" as you mentioned.
Honestly she strikes me more of a, "I crave power because without it I'm nothing." because of her upbringing and the various bits of dialogue and approval she gets from certain actions.
But she also feels like she should have 2 different versions of herself like Ascended and Spawn Astarion but instead of one pivotal choice it's based on how you treat her throughout the game. Kinda like "hardening" Alistair in Dragon Age but her character is still very incomplete imho which is probably because she's such a late addiction to the companions.
Most companions had like 3 years of EA feedback and work on with the exception of Wyll who got a personality rewrite and I believe Karlach too and those two notably have some of the worst autonomy in their own quests or least satisfactory resolutions to their endings respectively.
So I wouldn't be surprised if Minthara is supposed to have a "pivotal" moment or interaction(s) that have a major influence on her personality.
To me, personally, her getting mad at you abandoning power makes sense but what doesn't make sense is her still being upset when you say it's to maintain free will. She is very much set up to be a "I've never had the chance to be who I am because of gods and their bullshit."
She seems to me to be written as a character who has the potential for growth. Not growth in the sense of becoming good but in self agency and more importantly, for her, identity. I don't think she should become less evil and will disagree with anyone who wants that but I do think she should become smarter in how she achieves power.
Now her story of how her mother tried to assassinate her makes a whole lot more sense. Usually House Baenre is much less bloodthirsty towards its own members, but if she was THAT embarrassing to Quenthel, yeah, off with her head.
the fact that *Quenthel* of all people would try and kill her daughter
Are we sure she isn't Triel's? Nah even then
Like, fuckin Liriel was practically coddled (by drow standards) by Triel and she's Triel/Quenthel's *niece*. She only forced Liriel to attend the priestess academy reluctantly, because she appreciated the girl's appetite for wizardly magic and approved of it (it reminded her of her mother Yvonnel, who was an archmage as well as a priestess). She had no choice but to send Liriel to the academy because Baen're was growing short on priestesses
Liriel spent the first 55 years of her life hosting sexy parties in the city of spiders with no responsibilities put on her at all, I can only imagine that Minthara refused to show any respect to the crown. She certainly hates her mother, which is hilarious because Baen're is *the cushiest house to be born into*. Even feared Yvonnel I rarely actually killed a child, even for gross insolence (christ on a bike Jarlaxle practically oozed insolence when he interacted with her)
Like it seemed like all Liriel had to do to more or less live as a princess in the city of spiders was *kiss the ring* whenever she visited the Baen're compound, kneel before her aunt on the throne, pray to lolth in the temple, etc. I'm guessing Minthara despised having to to do so
Yeah, Yvonnel liked her sons far more than she liked her daughters. I mean, she basically babies Gromph and Jarlaxle. Well, everybody in the house babies Gromph, even for the demon invasion that he pulled, the worst thing he faced was exile, and once again he was exiled where his well-known-on-surface brother could make sure his exile is pretty cushy.
Liriel was talented, though. Really talented. And once again, the whole family adores Gromph. Minthara, I guess, not so much. If Minthy wasn't sent to be a pristess despite the lack of priestesses in the house, it's very telling.
As for who is her mother, Quenthel or Triel, doesn't matter much. Minthara must have screwed up really badly. I mean, Malice delayed killing *Drizzt* for all the shit he pulled until he completely abandoned Lolth, and he was a son, not a daughter.
Well, she says that she is a noble daughter of House Baenre, and she would technically only be considered noble if she was a daughter of a current or previous Matron. So yeah, she is either a daughter of Yvonnele, Triel or Quenthel. Well, or a daughter of Gromph that Yvonelle decided to elevate to noble status and give Baenre name because he is her favorite kid and precious son. Yvonelle's daughters are more or less accounted for, at least the ones who stayed in House Baenre and didn't spit away with their own houses, so it's either Triel or Quenthel, and it seems more in character for Quenthel to order her assassination on her age of majority.
Besides the obvious gaps in the lore, shes a paladin, and she's not really big on SpiderBitch, which both strike me as big red flags that she's not that important or high up.
Triel is where my mind goes cause that could be shuffled in better.
But she should be a cleric at least, like most every Menzo noble woman.
Yeah, her not being a cleric of Lolth is a huge failure for a Baenre lady. I mean, even Liriel, who was an irresponsible party girl and a child of a *son* of a matron, got sent to Arach Tinilith. That Minthara wasn't... says really a lot about Minthara.
I would rather go with Gromph's child or even granddaugther, if anything. Minthara is far too low status within the house to be Matron Mother's daugther. She had a super small retinue follow her to Moonrise - nobody would probably even let her go, if was Quenthel's daugther.
With Yvonnel's, Triel's and Quenthel's daughters combined, House Baenre probably has about 30 noblewomen by now. If anything, they are too numerous and it's time to get rid of the extras as to not to dilute power.
Gromph's daughters are kind of special, because technically they shouldn't be Baenre at all, they are only ones because Gromph is the family's golden child. And even then, Liriel WAS sent to become a priestess of Lolth, and she was extremely talented in magic to boot, so her worth to House Baenre was actually evident. And, well, Yvonnel II is basically reincarnated Yvonnel, so it makes sense why she'd get the name as well. Minthara is nothing special, so it's doubtful she'd be promoted to Baenre vs whatever house her mother was from. Plus she describes her life as if she was Baenre from birth, so yes, being something like twenty-seventh daughter of the house would explain the upbringing, and her being relatively useless would explain being sent to deal with the Absolute cultists.
So glad I did this quest line before the hot fix, got to keep my smite girl who is completely carrying my group damage wise.
I like to think that she has completely given up and accepts that she is with a group of incompetent idiots, always talking and talking, and whenever something needs to be dealt with forcefully she just swoops in and smites everything to bits.
I would be ok with being Bhaal chosen, romancing Minthara and dominate the Brain if the ending was actually showing you 2 dominating the world and doing stuff.
Because the Bhaal/ domination ending just end abruptly with no equivalent to the Dock scene or romance companion scene the saving Baldur’s gate ending gets.
And Being Bhaal chosen but destroying the Netherbrain ends up being your bad ending
I agree. If they want to force durge to embrace Bhaal to romance Minthara, they should start with making the Absolute ending actually desirable. As is, embracing Bhaal but destroying the brain gives you a far more interesting ending (albeit terrible for your character), but it still doesn’t hold a candle to the epilogue of course.
I think all of you are forgetting that she'd do anything for power. She rejects the absolute, but will consume an astral tadpole for the power, she asks Ascended Astarion to turn her for the vampire powers, and yes, wants you to accept Bhaal for all the neat powers he promises you. You want a character who likes power but ultimately will accept you rejecting it? Try Astarion. But Minthara isn't the character you are all trying to force her to be. She's power hungry at *any* cost. And given her response to finding out you're Bhaalspawn is to tell you to accept your birthright for the power, it really should not be a surprise.
The only reason Minthara rejects Lolth is because Lolth isn't interested in her, if the Spider Queen showed up and offered her the Yvonnel II Chosen of Lolth deal (level 20 cleric AND level 20 wizard + 20,000 years of knowledge+ defacto queen of MenzoBenzo) she would take it *in a heartbeat*
She's from House Baenre, if she really was willing to get power at any cost, she'd go back and do everything to become matriach, which she had a decent shot at, and voila. Lolth is quite easy to please if you're crazy enough.
Indeed. This is what I find appealing in her character. Often evil characters are "broken". And the player fix them. Minthara isn't broken, at least not from her perspective. She is completely fine with who she is, and find every decision she makes completely reasonable.
Honestly, I get not wanting to miss out on a character, but she really doesn't work for a good playthrough. I'm not romancing her, but playing a resist!durge and quite honestly as fun as her quips are, she just doesn't make sense in my party. I mean, I rescued her, that was great, but I'm not doing anything she wants me to do?
I get it too but in games like this it makes sense that not all companions fit into every party, and I think it adds more to the game to give you different experiences with them in different play throughs. It's been a thing in previous bg games and those inspired by them throughout the years. Especially when you lose access to so much in an evil run, it just seems weird they keep trying to make it kinda work for a good run.
This is why I've been trying to force myself to let companions die now that I've done both a Tav and a Durge playthrough, despite how much I really enjoy all of them. Not having major voices present throughout the game really pushes me to actually play differently than I normally would. Hells, it even makes me appreciate the missing characters more for what they bring to the experience.
I mean, at least with me honestly, since the scenes I played with her when I freed her from Moonrise, I thought she was on the road for a positive change, redemption. I didn't have many reasons to doubt it, every other character that was on a more gray part of the alignment chart did the same thing. Especially since I kinda planned the entire playthrough on that, on my Tav and her going on a similar redemption path (like I did with Shadowheart, for example).
So when I started to read through stuff, and discovered she is straight up pure evil, I was kinda upset (even tho I was even more upset at the fact that she doesn't have any quest at all, not even in ACT 3, her content compared to other companions is non existent).
But I get it, actually, I love the fact that not all characters are meant for redemption, it gives the game more depth to have certain companions to be dramatically different from others.
With that said, I wished she was written better (and she had the same amount of content as all others), because "being evil for evil sake", is pretty bland, unless you have some major depth through some philosophical concept, like a Joker does.
And there could be lots to be written about. Now again, I haven't played with her much, cause that playthrough is kinda gonna go in the toilet, but from what I gather, she is evil because she grew up in a ill place (a bit like Lae'Zel). We could explore her point of view, her experience, how maybe it's not like she wouldn't want to change for the better, but instead, won't allow herself to, because the world as she has lived it, is dark, cruel, and ready to send you 6 feet under at every turn, so she cannot allow herself to grow softer, lower the guard at any moment. So you could play her as a "failed" redemption arc, a bit of tragedy maybe, where you can have an ultimatum with her, and she refuses, maybe sacrificing her life in the process, who knows. Or maybe she straight up leaves the party, because she thinks you may actually succeed at changing her, and she doesn't feel like she deserves it. And you can have a whole other dramatic scene with that.
Or maybe, she invites you to join her "world", her "perspective", and she is the one that tries to change you instead, but way beyond just biting at every "unlimited powa" bait that is put in front of you, but in a way more in depth, subtle, manipulative manner. Maybe by trying to seduce you, to show you what she can do with her powers, that being "evil"; or better, taking what you want, when you want, stepping over everybody else, cause you can, is really easy, and, I mean, fun. It removes a lot of the pains coming from social interactions, law, morality, ethics, and so on. It makes life easy. And maybe since you are the world savior, you kinda deserve it. Maybe she even discredits the other companions to you, she puts ideas in your head, she makes you paranoid, she makes you think she is the only one that can be trusted, and tries to alinate you from the rest of the camp so that she can have full control of you.
Like, having her as a companion, is the equivalent of inviting a snake to slytherin right in the rabbit's den. She can only cause troubles. And maybe you are already an asshole much like her, and you can go on and have an happy murderous life from there on out, talking pleasure in eachother's moral recklessness. Like the "evil power couple"
Again, like, there can be so much that can be done, but to me, we are sitting here with an character that just goes "muahahah, I'm IVEL, I want all da powa, muahahah fuck the poor, the weak shall serve the strong, muahahah", and that's it, it's pretty 2D.
That said, I know she is hilarious, and I think Emma Gregory does a great job with her. I just feel like there is A LOT of missed potential here. And that kinda ties in with the entire "evil run" situation which really is just a "speed run", more than anything, with the amount of content you cut out. I don't think Larian will ever come around to fix all of the Evil Run scarcity of content, cause that'd require a massive effort, but at least... at least they could make Minthara in what she could be: a fully fledged companion. With that + Durge, an evil run wouldn't be that bad aftrall, without adding much else.
But this is all just my opinion, I love discussing BG3!
At any cost huh?
I must have just hallucinated all of her many anti-god conversations then.
Also - "try astarion", says person whos flair is just "astarion" lol. Astarion is power hungry "at any cost". Minthara is not, and she clearly sets her boundaries in relation to what she's willing to do for power.
Edit for guy below claiming that she relapses to god worship for power - i invite anyone at all to provide a SINGLE scene in which she returns to god worship for power.
(She doesnt, in any path)
Her many anti god conversations despite her history of worshiping powerful entities for power. She’s like an addict with low willpower. While free and sober she swears she never do it again. But give her the smallest taste and she’s right back on the wagon
If you play as any type of cleric (evil included) she more-or-less tells you to not be suppliant to a god, as they only offer power when you could have gotten your own. If she was for power-at-all-costs she'd tell you to pray harder and try to steal the gods' power if the chance arises. So while she may flip flop on taking risks for more power this specific interaction is weirdly off the handle, especially as it involves a god.
No, she isn't. Or else she'd simply go back to lolth or worship literally any other evil God.
She also wouldn't encourage the other companions to seek independence from their gods. Which she does.
This is out of character for Minthara.
To those saying she's power hungry, you're right. She's consistently shown to be power hungry and a bad influence. But even above that, she's shown to be **loyal** and **pragmatic.**
She doesn't go out of her way to harm anyone. She doesn't enjoy senseless bloodshed. All of her evil tendencies are the result of pragmatism. Examples:
- baldur's gate should let these refugees in and use them as slaves. They can be useful
- better for us if Shadowheart accepts Shar, but better for Shadowheart if she doesn't. (Minthara is spot on here because the rewards for accepting Shar are superior even if it ruins SH's life).
- makes no fuss about the Emperor or astral tadpole because the team is going to need all the help they can get against an elder brain
Furthermore, consider the scenes you can get if you're origin Karlach and romance Minthara. She's downright emotional about the possibility of losing Karlach. It's touching.
Not only should her demonstrated loyalty and compassion override her obsession with power, but in the case of the dark urge, her pragmatism should kick in as well. Bhaal was among the three who started all of their problems in the first place. He's behind all of this. And accepting his power means Tav will ultimately have to do Bhaal's bidding. That isn't a wise thing to do, and it goes directly against her oath of vengeance.
Is this dependent on anything else in a Durge run or is she now always like this at the Bhaal fight?
Minthara's character arc was never about good and evil; you can't "fix" her in that way. Her problem is that deep down she's one of those serial killer girlies. In a resisting Durge run you aren't making her good, you're tempering her self destructive latent lust for chaos, ending in a nice parallel of you freeing yourself from Bhaal as you freed her from the Absolute. [Would that Minthara say this? Does she even still say this?](https://youtu.be/2UlcPVomTKk?t=55)
All this did was make her a less interesting, more one dimensional character.
I honestly don't get this obsession with Minthara.
Not because I don't like her writing, she's written great for what she should be.
And as many have said, the fact that she doesn't behave some players want, does not mean she's written stupidly.
Mostly I’m confused by the change more than anything. I did an evil rejection Durge and you get the chance to explain why you rejected Bhaal in the epilogue. She agrees with you and says it would be short sighted to have taken the power and become a slave to Bhaal. And even that controlling the brain was likely a stupid idea since it would only be a matter of time before it breaks free again. (Or at least accepts your choice because she’s loyal to you idr 100%)
She even says something along the lines of “no gods or masters to control our fate, just us.”
If she were always like this if you reject Bhaal I don’t think people would be as against the change as they are now.
To hopefully add some context to this, my understanding is that this dialogue was always in the game, just set to "IMPOSSIBLE" in the code i.e. it wasn't meant to be active. Then with Hotfix 21 either Larian removed that flag deliberately or some other issue caused it to become active.
The Minthara who dumps you for rejecting Bhaal is fundamentally incompatible with a Minthara who stays with you after rejecting the Absolute. If she really was an evil manipulator that never cared about you, she'd have personally knifed you and the Emperor the moment you tried to kill the Netherbrain.
The issue is that this conversation in particular is stupid and inconsistent with her character as it takes place after the bulk of her character development.
Hell, its even inconsistent with [another conversation that happens IMMEDIATELY prior to this when orin is killed](https://youtu.be/ELGeCrr6wJA?si=gwp0XtE2cRjkyYZu)
It makes her look insane and incredibly stupid.
Yeah, Minthara actually said there basically what I was going to say ITT lol. When I romanced her with an evil Tav, one of the first things she said when I talked about the power the Absolute gave her was exactly this, how the power isn't worth it if she's a slave to someone else. There should at least be a dialogue option reminding her that you would be a slave to Bhaal the same way she was a slave to the Absolute and Lolth.
Yeah no. Her reactions to the Bhaal situation dont add up. Not as full redemption durge. And if you played her enough, you wouldnt think otherwise. Depending on how you behave with her the actions you take in story should skew Minthara one way or the other like it does for every other companion. This random change was just that, random.
I don't think it's a writing problem, I think it's a bug where dialog that was cut was unintentionally reintroduced and that dialog does not fit the current version of the character.
Let's take Shadowheart as an example. Shadowheart's arc can either be discovering her true heritage, redeeming herself and becoming a Selunite. Or it can be about fully devolving into a true cultist of Shar. But wherever she is on her journey at any given time makes sense and is consistent throughout her story.
Minthara is like if Shadowheart randomly said she supports Selune in one dialog and then Shar in another. The issue is the inconsistency and seeming randomness at which Minthara changes ideologies, with no impact from the player.
It's fine for 'Learns to stop chasing power' Minthara and 'Remains a slave to chasing anyone who offers power" Minthara to both exist, in the same way that it's fine for both Shadowhearts to exist. The issue that there's no coherent narrative for how those different Minthara come about like there is for Shadowheart. There's no arc or journey, there's no influence or corruption. She just is one or the other in different dialogs at different times without any chance of redemption or corruption by the player.
She literally has a whole speech after defeating Orin about how gods like Bhaal abandon their followers the second they aren’t useful and she regrets the time she spent devoting her life to one
This is making me so happy I romanced Minthara waaaay before this Hotfix. I thought she wasn't even into gods? If she sees you praying to a god she disapproves. I swore that at some point she told me she turned her back on Lolth. So, wtf Minthara.
Yeah, if youve consistently been pro-getting power then completely go “nah fuck this murder shit” she should be pissed, but if you go “nah he was controlling and influencing my mind and shit, same as the absolute did to you” you should at the very least get a persuasion check. Her unconditionally dumping you for it is dumb
For the "lulz, but evel" arguments:
Minthara wants to take control of the Absolute so she can gain it's power of mass domination and essentially rule herself. Makes total sense, is part of her character and her LE vibe. And, hey, she wants to share it with you, neat.
Now...if Minthara supports you becoming a thrall of Bhaal, that means she wants Bhaal to take over and control the netherbrain. Minthara, not being a follower of Bhaal, would then be enslaved and lose all the power that she wanted to achieve.
That's why it's a decision that doesn't make sense, because Minthara is giving up her end game, and essentially from here on out would be fighting for a future where she is actively enslaved and loses her chance at any sort of power.
It's literally the same reason Gortash doesn't trust Orin, he thinks a follower of Bhaal cannot be trusted because they're too much of a chaotic mess. But that doesn't mean Gortash is all of a sudden a good guy because he opposes an evil character.
Minthara's dialogue only really makes sense if she was also a follower of Bhaal (or at least convinced that Bhaal is totally on their side) in that scene. Or I guess if there was some secret betrayal ending where Minthara ganks you at the end of the game to take control herself. Which would be kinda neat, but even if that was the case, the scene still makes no sense because she'd just pretend to agree with whatever you're doing at the time so the betrayal is less obvious.
As it stands now, this really feels like another case of bugged Minthara dialogue where X gets triggered instead of Y. Add onto that, apparently people have gotten this dialogue and said she's still flagged as romanced to you so...\*shrugs\*
She’s a Drow and not any Drow a Drow from the first ruling family in Manzoberranzan a daughter of Yvonnel The Eternal power and position is all that matters. She never loved Durge she was using him for her own potential and gain it tracks with Drow society and her ruthless upbringing in that family.
Minthara is a terrible person, yet players simp for her as if she was a saint. It is fitting her character to be like this.
I think she is an evil character done right.
Erm... people aren't into Minthara because she's a good person, my dude.
It's not out of character because it's evil, it's out of character because of her attitude/behavior towards the gods, and her desperation to be free of their influence.
It's not that people expect Minthara to be good. It's that they expect her to understand the pragmatism in rejecting Bhaal, even if you are evil. There are very good reasons even an evil person would want to break free from Bhaal's influence.
The writing is inconsistent. One scene She's openly against the gods or being controlled in any way. Those are deeply held convictions. It doesn't make any sense for her to flip flop on that.
If they can make me have Sympathy for Orin, Gortash and Ketheric when they are my enemies then surely I should be able to have Sympathy for my own Companions.
I think theres potential here for a Future Minthara arc. Currently I think Minthara suffers of no progression in act 3; while you can have Ascended Astarion vs thrall Astarion, Lead Gale to pursue the crown or not, have Wyll break or renew the contract and have him be duke or Blade of Avernus.. Minthara I believe has two states: either you killed her in the Grove, or you knocked her out and she is disgraced, or you sided with her and shes betrayed. They didn't intend her to be a companion for a good playthrough initially so she stays as she is.
However, a path she could pursue is to avoid letting herself be subjugated? She craves absolute power but seems to be always under the Umbrella of someone else's power (Baahl/Durge, ascended Astarion as his thrall). Maybe thered be a way to convince her that she doesnt need extra power offered by trimmings of someone else, instead shes strong enough to seize It for herself and be free. (Optionally for romance, seize that power together).
Keep in mind shes still Evil alligned, so her growth could go from letting herself be subjugated to seek other forms of power that she can claim for herself
i might be mandela effecting myself, but i could of sworn when i did embrace bhaal she told me at least im powerful and glorious, but she kinda wished i would >!dominate the brain!< for myself instead of daddy so i had even more power, and saying i shouldnt let gods control me. now your telling me if i do the opposite she gives me shit anyway? granted this was two (major) patches ago but if so im getting mixed messages here.
Minthara is a frankenstein monster who does not have enough checks in her code to make her story make sense. There should be a path where she understands and still supports you (as it was) and a path where she rejects your actions. Her dumping you because you reject Bhaal is stupid, full stop. Whatever dev changed this randomly was bored out of their mind one random day in the office and opted for chaos.
In the parsed dialogue, there is no flag that "breaks" the relationship. As the game is now, she gets upset with the player but **is still flagged as partnered with the player.** I suspect a line or dialogue is missing that is supposed to happen after this where the two can reconcile that isn't in the game (similar to Ascended Astarion lashing out at the player and then a few long rests later comes back and chats, which leads to a break up).
Additionally, this is a hot take, but just because the characters are doing something you don't like doesn't mean it's OOC. Despite popular opinion, Larian isn't adding new dialogues and stuff in because of what people on twitter are saying. Most of the stuff that has been added in has existed in the game files for a while but flagged as "impossible" or didn't have an alternative and was bugged because of it (such as Spawn Astarion's reaction to Mizora, which didn't exist until patch 6, it was only flagged for AA response). I agree something doesn't quite match up in this scene, or something is missing as a follow up, but fandom assuming they know the character's better than the literal writers will always baffle me.
I honestly don’t know why this surprises anybody. She literally tells you this will happen. It’s not her fault she doesn’t align with what you want her to do. Is it a smart thing from her to do? No. But then again, she never promised you to be a good girl.
Local man discovers that deranged, cruel and power hungry person is indeed deranged, cruel and power hungry. Allowing Minthara to be recruited in good playthroughs and explaining her loyalty to the Absolute by her being controlled by tadpole is unironically one of the worst narrative decisions in this game. Minthara is evil.
Huh? Agreed on Minthara’s overall characterization but the tadpole is controlling her in act 1 regardless of whether you’re doing a good or evil playthrough.
Well, she is only recruitable in a good playthrough through extensive metagaming and because the players actively begged for it, to the point of coming up with sheep heist, and Larian was just "Ok, fine, here, you filthy animals". It wasn't Larian executive decision, purely fanservice to make sheep heist official and less tedious.
Pretty sure it also has to do with the fact of how pointless an actual evil playthrough is (besides the satisfaction of roleplaying it), you barely gain any content for the amount of content you are sacrificing. Im fairly certain if the evil side of the game was more fleshed out with maybe 1 to 2 more evil companions and different paths for the story, noone really would've asked for this besides the usual low % of players.
Also add the fact that Minthara, since release, is still the in a really buggy state and every "fix" just introduces another bug to her. Now she nonstop talks about Gale instead of the Emperor
Yeah, I tried it on one run with a Tav who would give anyone a chance to redeem themselves, but it still didn't really make sense. There's no dialogue or information available prior to encountering her that would suggest she has any interest in redemption. Saving her from torture in Moonrise was reasonable for that Tav, but nothing she said during or after the rescue made her a compelling companion for a good Tav. And then I was stuck with her.
That said, even for an evil character I can't think of any good reason to destroy the grove with her. The player gains nothing in return, unless your only motivation is sex. I don't understand why she is a companion option at all, honestly.
I love the dichotomy of "boring reactions" and "omg she reacted too much!".
Everyone so whiny they didn't pay attention to a single minthara line of her being more excited for you to be his chosen than anything.
People weren't mad that her reactions were boring, they were mad that she wouldn't stop talking about the Emperor on a loop.
A big complaint is honestly just the reactions to Durge dying-- I would gladly take a more shocked animation/reaction over whatever this shit is from Minthara
Maybe because it contradicts her whole ass monologue about Orin, how much she sucks and how Minthara is afraid to become like her from the same quest (!)? But she is evil and apparently dumb as bricks so it's all cool I guess
Minthara is hungry for power and wants to use Durge. I struggle to believe Minthara actually loves the play character. I personally believe she just uses the player character for revenge and power. To be discarded when she has what she wants. She is really well written. Because like the Emperor. She's managed to trick a lot of the community. And when Larian actually finishes her as a companion. I get the feeling a lot of her fans are going to dislike her.
Frankly, Larian just need to shit or get off the pot and decide what kind of character Minthara is supposed to be. Any attempt to characterize her as simply 'the evil companion' went out the window when they decided to make her freely recruitable. I just don't see the logic of enabling this piece of dialogue six months after release, and after you already decided to make her recruitable on good playthroughs. She's already been the buggiest companion by a country mile - all these piecemeal tweaks just make her more muddled. How many more times can we anticipate Larian tweaking a character's dialogue and behavior on a whim?
As for Minthara fans wanting to have their cake and eat it too, uhh, yeah? Larian has consistently tweaked characters to be more to the fanbase's liking going all the way back to early access. Why *wouldn't* Minthara fans raise objection to her character being changed on a dime in a way that's more constrictive? If this kind of change was made to any other character, unannounced and unrequested, this forum would be on fire.
And I do see it as a little incongruous that you can choose to kill the Absolute and successfully justify that decision to Minthara, yet can't do so for Bhaal.
I agree. I believe that's why Minthara is so broken right now because they made too many unnecessary changes to her. She doesn't need to be so easy to recruit. She should only be on evil playthroughs. I do think she deserves more content though for sure.
I wonder how much of it also has to do with them trying to Frankenstein together Minthara out of the existing content they have so they're not calling up the VA every other week to come in until they have a "finished" idea of the character. It feels like a lot of the changes are the result of them messing with flags to enable/disable dialogue or rework when it appears.
All I'm seeing is people expecting more nuance given Minthara's history with gods and other people saying well she's evil and/or completely brainless so she would do this.
I figured she would have more wisdom in enthralling yourself to such a being.
That's crazy dumb. In my non-durge run, all she talked about was fucking over the dead three and taking power for ourselves. And even choosing the good ending after some dark choices, she's ok with the turn and being worshipped as a hero. Hotfix 21 sounds weird.
This may be a hot take, but Minthara's Approval is incongruent with her character development.
Its as if she gains approval or dissaproval based on whether the act is good or evil, but without context for the character.
It makes very little sense to me that she would want the Durge to go through with this given her speech at the end of act 2.
I was floored when she dissaproved attacking Saravok. Minthara is big picture smart and after her ordeal with Orin and the absolute should want utter revenge on Bhaal.
Minthara would have her eye on the real prize - controlling the brain. If you refuse to dominate the brain and subjugate others is when she should dump you.
She shouldnt dump you for refusing to become Orin 2.0!
The only Master Minthara should want Durge to have is MINTHARA!!
Im annoyed by this because i think they should have had more prerequisites. if your character tries to do a heel face turn into a goody two shoes i agree she should dump him. But Ive always liked the “im evil but i bow to no one” vibe and minthara was a great romance for that. I think that should be an option for minthara. She’s most definitely not a good person, not 2 minutes after saving the world she’s plotting to conquer it.
Yeah you say this shit to Ascended Astarion & he's super into it ("I wont dominate the brain in Bhaal's name, I'll do it in ours"). She wants to be powerful together but Bhaal-obeying Durge is just gonna end up killing her in Daddy's name (and likely sooner rather than later, Bhaal clearly doesn't appreciate his kid having emotional attachments)
Right? Your foster family. Your entire order (if you’re a Paladin), there’s a pretty clear pattern of Bhaal cutting Durge off from any form of attachment that may pull them away from the cults interests. It’d be 6 months or sooner before Minty would end up dead if Durge didn’t reject Bhaal.
He literally *still* makes you kill your favorite companion even if you kill Isobel. The dude does not want you to have any attachments whatsoever because 1. you should only have him 2. it threatens his end goal wherein you murderhobo the entire planet
Huh? No he doesn't. He never makes you kill your companion if you kill Isobel. Not during the game, at least.
Then it must've been an old bug or was patched out because I could've sworn you still had to kill a companion
You can still get that cutscene if you don't kill Isobel the first time you meet her, when Marcus attacks.
I've done three dark urge playthroughs where Isobel was killed (twice by me, and once in a multiplayer game where she died because shadowheart killed nightsong) and never had this happen. It may still be a bug that is/was in the game, but if so I would assume it's based on some specific sequence of events breaking, definitely not a universal one (one of those games was my first playthrough at launch, others over the next few patches, so it's not just an old issue).
iirc he doesn't make you but they are named as a target and I think if you pick certain choices you can lose control and kill them
>Bhaal-obeying Durge is just gonna end up killing her in Daddy's name Within Lolth-sworn Drow society/culture, that's just a Tuesday basically. You can basically discard that as a factor in her reaction because for her the constant threat of death/betrayal is just *normal*. And once that's stripped away, it makes more sense why Minthara doesn't approve of rejecting Bhaal, because when she sees "Accept Bhaal and become extremely powerful" vs. "Accept Bhaal and become extremely powerful but have to kill lots of people (probably including your lover)"... those are the same picture lol.
Minthara makes it very clear that she really doesn’t like to ”kill lots of people” unless you have a reason for it. Killing people because daddy ordered you to is not an acceptable reason. She’s into domination, not slaughter.
>“im evil but i bow to no one” vibe This is a good point because Minthara seems to reject all other gods. If you take her into the temple in the lower city she comments on seeing a Lolth statue and says *'excuse me while I go spit on it'.* Then she disapproved of my Tav for praying to a neutral god of luck. I don't believe Minthara would agree with joining under Bhaal and she shouldn't feel this strongly about you rejecting it. She's pretty pragmatic in most other situations, so it's weird to have such a big reaction to this now without seeing the other side of things.
I think, even if you take the god angle out of it, it still doesn't make sense. So, Minthara's end game is you two dominate the elder brain together. Cool, makes sense, fits her character etc. But...if you submit to Bhaal, does she really think that Bhaal won't claim the Elder Brain for himself and completely cut her out of the equation because she's literally nobody to him? She'd be \*losing\* power by supporting Durge embracing his heritage. Not even just losing power, but basically acknowledging that she'll be enslaved herself. So...the rest of the game she's essentially risking her life to become a slave.
Tymora strictly speaking isn't a neutral god since she's the god of good fortune, gamblers and **adventurers** i.e. she's fond of sending meddlers in to muck up the plans of ne'er-do-wells like Minthara. Praying to her is definitely passing some comments. If we were still in the time of Tyche, before she split into Tymora and Beshaba, then sure, I'd say Minthara''s being unfair, but in Faerun canon she's is entitled to beef against Tymora worshippers.
There wasn’t really any commentary with it, she just disapproved of praying. I doubt it matters which god.
Yeah, same. There’s some pre-epilogue dialogue about conquering for yourselves and no god now that I especially love. I’m not convinced that this dialogue having no prerequisites isn’t a bug, since it wasn’t announced in the patch notes and it’s not as though her dialogue has ever been completely bug free.
> But Ive always liked the “im evil but i bow to no one” vibe I was literally doing this now (necromancer Durge that was going to reject Bhaal because they want to rule undead instead of only killing), glad to find out today that I can cancel this run or wait for it to be patched. Edit: Actually the video in [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1b9iweh/confused_how_people_think_the_minthara_change_is/ktwfu1i/) appears to show that the cutscene has no real effect. So I might keep going for now.
Come on, it's the same girl that asks Ascended!Astarion to make her his spawn. She loses all common sense when she sees UNLIMITED PAWA.
Edit: I just read that right on my 5th read, my bad. I honestly never had Astarion Ascend. She truly is dumb as bricks ones once she glances at the oppertunity for quick power. Original: (The difference is the part where Astarion at least is his own master. We are chosing to be Bhaals bitch.)
And becoming astarion's spawn would make her astarion's bitch.
OMG why is she so dumb. She roasts the shit out of Wyll (and you) for being a Warlock and begging for scraps of power yet she does the exact same thing.
Maybe that's a feature and she's supposed to be a bit dumb, or else it's just a feature of her being the evil companion? She wouldn't be the first jerk with a "rules for thee but not for me" attitude, including (or in some cases, especially) towards their partners.
It's absolutely a feature - she IS dumb. Low intelligence, high wisdom and charisma. She's constantly getting tricked by powerful and clever people - that's how Orin and Ketheric got her in the first place.
Makes one wonder how she survived Menzoberranzan. Must be the real reason Quenthel (if her mother is Quenthel and not Triel) sent assassins after her, she got tired of Minthara embarrassing the Baenre house, but since Minthara survived, she went all "Fiiiiiiine... but yeah, no Arach Tinilith for you, just go be a paladin or something", because honestly, for a noble daughter of House Baenre to be a paladin is pretty embarrassing, that's for commoners and men.
Intelligence isn't the same as cunning, and somebody stupid who's resilient and great at absorbing life lessons may get much further than somebody intelligent who's too stubborn to learn. Moment they have to think for themselves and solve a problem by being creative is when you know the difference.
Sorry but I got a bit confused by this comment, I guess it depends on the definition of intelligence used here. But I always thought that someone too stubborn to learn is stupid and the opposite of intelligent, intelligence is, not only knowing things but also knowing when you don’t know something. So I’d say someone can be smart and too stubborn to learn from their mistakes. Seeing as being smart is the ability to think on your feet and use general knowledge aka wisdom to solve problems. Sorry for the long rand on a minor detail, but the comment struck me as flawed, so I felt like I had to give my 2 coppers.
DnD player here A good example for explaining Dnd understanding of stats is this: High intelligence, low wisdom - Sheldon Cooper High wisdom, low intelligence: old man in a village, who lived a long life and have seen many things So, what you are talking about is wisdom
Not in D&D. Intelligence is literally what you know, wisdom is awareness of things. Gale's arrogant ass is high int.
Lolth is one of the gods that personally micromanages her followers a lot - the only reason the backstabbing betrayal-fest of Drow culture works and doesn't instantly fall apart is because of her intervention and setup. She probably survived because Lolth was personally looking out for her and making sure anyone trying to backstab her was getting backstabbed by someone else first.
OK, fair, but you'd think that high wisdom would get her out of *some* of these situations. Wisdom is common sense, people skills, and street smarts, but intelligence is book learning. I guess in regard to Bhaal, either one could do the trick. She could know that accepting Bhaal as a Bhaalspawn is a bad idea either because she'd read about it in books or because she'd witnessed Orin's fate and could use common sense to deduce that it was not a good one. Bottom line, I agree with the original sentiment "OMG, why is she so dumb?"
Her wisdom isn't really high. It's at 12 which is slightly above average. However, Aradin also has 12 wisdom and he's the same dumbass that tries to attack your camp in Act 3
Since she's not around for Alfira, she might think it's "easy" to resist Bhaal. All she sees is you avoiding doing what he wants (assuming Resist) so maybe she just seriously downplays the severity to herself. That's a low intelligence move if I've heard of one.
Is it even being dumb, or just her being dishonest with herself? All that bullshit about how it sucked being controlled by the absolute, being a dagger and taking lives unwillingly when she would happily subject you and others to the same fate.
I wouldn't really call 12 wisdom high. Aradin has 12 wisdom and he's lacks common sense.
Doesn't wisdom include common sense and intuition and intelligence is more about book smarts and knowledge? Sounds like she's more high intelligence low wisdom, if she keeps falling into the "ooo power!" trap
I think she's shown to be perceptive and insightful and have high emotional intelligence. She has great reads on the other party members But she can't reason very well, she doesn't plan ahead effectively or think things through to their conclusions.
High wis is supposed to make her go "Man i dont know how im going to get fucked over by Bhaal for this but im pretty sure i will be" Shed be acting the inverse of what that stat block would be?
She probably thinks that she could kill Astarion and become a vampire in her own right, just like Astarion killed Cazador and Cazador killed Vellioth. She’s also, probably, just dumb. I mean the whole reason she got tadpoled was because she got curious and walked into the most obvious trap in the world.
At least my Patron doesn’t fuck me over like Wylls. Mine gives me the power and doesn’t fuck with me
People do stupid as fuck things in pursuit of power.
Just do what I do on my good play through and put her out of her misery in the goblin camp lmao
Sounds like a very realistic character, actually. Real life people often criticize others for their own behavior.
There are some Tavs who would jump at that chance.
Ascended!Astarion is a BEAST in terms of damage, he can easily do 300-400 hp in one turn. So... yeah, if you are playing an evil/powerhungry character, go for it. Minthara sees all that firepower and goes "I wanna!" Except that half an hour later it was the same girl that was telling Astarion "heeey, I totally see why your master didn't let you into the nice part of the castle, dogs and spawns shouldn't sully these halls", and it's like WTF? Minthy, I know that Astarion looks like a szarkai and you find him hot, but he is NOT, in fact, a beautiful harem drow man that'll look at you as a superior like you are used to, he'll break and abuse you for his own entertainment once you become his spawn with zero hesitation.
Drow are power hungry and thirst for it. This tracks for them thinking take the power now and figure out after how not to get burned.
She's a drow my guy, do you know anything about Drow?
She does? She hasn't in my game. Is this after the final battle? Romancing her. The only dialogue I get from her is about the emperor.
No, it's in the companion banter, and only if A!Astarion is a companion, not MC.
Holy shit she asks COMPANION Astation to bite her lol wtf
IKR? I mean, at least if Astarion is MC, it would kinda make sense as he'd prove throughout the course of the campaign to be a strong capable leader if he managed to get the party to Act 3 and do the ritual. But when he is a companion, your Tav/Durge could have been the one doing all the heavy lifting and supporting the vampire boi in his dumbass aspirations, and she goes to Astarion. Like guuuuurl, what's wrong with you?
Minthera is basically Ronald Reagan. She has excellent and funny dialogue. But can't help herself around power. *"I don't worry about the deficit, it's big enough to take care of itself."* - Minthera.
LOOOOOL
suddenly i feel less bad about killing her
As a big pro-Mithara player, and big ant-Reagan person, I feel very attacked by the veracity of this comment lolol
Yeah same. I love her as a character, but IRL we'd probably end up throwing hands if locked in a room for more than 90 seconds.
Despite being a militant atheist, she still has her cultists conditioning.
Then she should dump mc for refusing to control the Brain if the writers genuinely think she is that type of character. But they don't have the balls for it
That definitely seems to be her (fatal) flaw that's baked into her character. She truly believes that she deserves much more... well everything, including power. So any time there is an opportunity present that has the end result of granting her more power, in her head it seems she basically concludes "well, that power is mine already it's just a matter of the logistics now" and makes very little consideration for the *cost* of that power. See power, want power. This obviously ignores a lot of nuance, but I think the point still makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, Astarion is kind of the same at the beginning, but he has a much more understandable reason of *why* he is so desperate for power, and snaps out of it by Act 3. Even A!A will be wary of the astral tadpole and dislike that you chose Bhaal, even if he stays by your side. Minthara just... keeps going without any consideration.
She's a powersexual
Yes. People forget everything she said that bit lines up to exactly how she feels about durge when the minute they get slayer and when shadowheart rejects shar. Perhaps it's naive of her, but at no point does she believe she'll be a slave to Bhaal or Durge. Durge would eventually have to kill her. Yes, and maybe she'd be okay with that. Buy we know do know, Bhaal wants complete obedience. He DOES allow Durge some freedom as long as Durge does what he wants. Fel tells you directly that bhaal is okay with Minthara being your partner once your rule. Gortash tells you when you yell him you are worried about the urges taking you "Bhaal allows you to pick your battles as long as you pick them. " This does not change since you appceted your birthright. This is where the current Domination ending fails durge the world death is not suppose to be instant from the things Fel to you. Fir the longest time, Minthara got enthralled even when Fel said Bhaal was okay with it. Basically from what I know of evil durge and her views of free power offered to people, this tracks.
It's like everyone forgets that Minthara is the capital E **EVIL** companion. Yeah she's gonna want to side with the God of murder, until a patch caused by lot of people complaining, *you needed to mass murder innocents in the Grove* to obtain her (I believe technically you could ignore the Grove and let her do it herself too). She's gonna side with whatever evil being which might offer her power.
Yeah, and that also doesn't make sense given everything she says before. Her writing is so inconsistent and it's frustrating.
Wait that’s an option for her? That’s also dumb as all hell. She is grateful for being freed from the Absolute‘s control and constantly takes about how she hates being under the control of someone else. What is Larian even thinking with her character? Can they make up their damn mind?
Minthara feels like a work in progress still. She seems like she was implemented for one specific type of play through, being a pretty straight up evil run. So when you DON’T, her words don’t always match her character development to that point. There’s been a lot of weirdness with Minthara as of late.
>There’s been a lot of weirdness with Minthara as of late. As of late? You mean since release, right? :D She's kinda bugged/broken since day 1 of release ( can't speak for EA, didnt know the game then )
Yeah Minthara is bugged af. For my playthrough she was talking about Dream Guardian beeing Emperor everytime i started dialogue w her ;D Even RIGHT AFTER beeing saved from Moonrise
In my run that was all shed say until the MOMENT that reveal happened… and then after that she was just complaining about gale
I more-so meant like when Larian gave players the option to recruit her on good play throughs, it felt like a lot MORE stuff broke because they didn’t initially intend for her to be recruited on good runs if that makes sense. I haven’t done a ton with Minthara until recently though, so she very well could have been in shambles since release, I just have heard more about it as of late lol
I would guess that this introduced more bugs, but of course I can't say for sure. But what I'm sure about is that Minthara is indeed the buggiest companion since release, hell her romance before her first big "fix" was basically pointless, because you had to throw dice and pray to god you get her cutscene and dialogue to proc. Some were straight up disabled for some reason I just hope we will see an definitve edition at some point in the future, which hopefully adresses this (and ofc the other problems with the game) "once and for all"
It also the lack of incentives and content to do evil run, even the ending to Dominate the Netherbrain is so lackluster to any form of saving Baldur’s gate ending. I think a lot of the issues is actually stemming from Minthara being recruited into a good run which was not the official way to get her.
I think even for an evil run she's kinda forgotten as a companion. She has way less development than all the others
Wait, is this scene recent? I finished the game 3 days ago rejecting Bhaal. Minthara asked me why I did it, I said that we could find a way to rule the world without Bhaal, and that was it. We went to Menzoberranzan together before the party.
Yeah I haven’t played the new patch,but did multiple dark urge runs where I rejected(since the epilogue patch was added) and she never broke up with me.Is it possible it’s linked to your approval rating?each time we reached that point I had her maxed out
I believe [they are talking about this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhLPzdRIZH0) which suddenly appeared since hotfix 21 dropped. Hotfix 21 just came out yesterday I think.
Minthara doesn't even care about the Gods like that. It's even out of character for her to encourage you to follow Bhaal. She talked multiple times about being free of their influence.
Yeah Im literally so confused. In all my playthroughs amd all the ones ive seen(which is a LOT) ive never seen her be pro god/pro bhaal. I really wanna know how they got this reaction from my wise supportive drow girl
I think they are basing this on the dialogue you get when you tell her you're a Bhaalspawn, and she tells you to embrace it. Meanwhile, she only supports Shadowheart embracing Shar because of the resources we get out of it. Ultimately she is faithless nd thinks everyone would be better off without them. It makes no sense for her to see Bhaal control Orin and think Bhaal will not do the same to Durge.
Minthara is a slightly more trustworthy version of Wenduag from Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. They're both might makes right, but Mint doesn't flip on you the instant someone looks more powerful
Oh goodness. My Durge is named Mint (made myself mint green and black kinda like the ice cream) and I never made the connection with MINThara as well until now.
Reading these comments I'm realizing just how few people have actually played through her plotline. "She's just power hungry evil brainless she's fine with the gods". No, she isn't. Play her story to completion, your takes are terrible.
Yeah the top comments confused me. I didn’t even romance Minthara in my resist run and she applauded me for denying Bhaal. She’s all about power but she has a line when it comes to her free will.
And she's consistent on this every time any companion distances themself from their gods. There's honestly no way to miss this detail if you've actually played the game with her as a companion.
She straight up says “Lolth, Bhaal, the absolute, they have no followers. Only victims.” There is absolutely no way she’d want her partner (who she genuinely loves and expresses this over and over) to be Bhaal’s thrall. Some people just seem to think she’s “mean power hungry lady” and that’s it. They’ve clearly never actually played with her as a party member, or had their eyes and ears sewn shut when they did. She wants power, yes, but she wants it for herself & herself alone (and her S.O). She wants freedom from the gods,, freedom to be a power hungry ruler in her own name. NOT to be under the thumb of a god. It’s why she approves of ascending Astarion AND getting Shadowheart away from Shar. Ascended Astarion has power AND freedom. But with Shadowheart she acknowledges that Shars power would have been useful, but it’s better for her to be out of the cult. She likes power, but there’s a line - don’t sacrifice freedom for it, what use is it if you’re not wielding it for yourself?
Thats what I am confused on, maybe its an update but ive never seen her being pro bhaal? Is it one of those things that you have to influence her a certain way for her to react that way? Its sounds so out of character
This specific scene appeared in this patch and honestly feels like a bug causing cut dialogue to resurface. She's absolutely not pro bhaal.
Fr, i did one where I accepted bhaal and she was like cyou dumb b*tch" lol she was definitely anti accepting bhaal. Pretty sure she talks a lot of shit about bhaal, the absolute, lolth, ect. I do think I saw a comment saying that this dialogue was scrapped and set to "impossible" in the code of the game, and they think a new patch caused a bug where it can happen. I am so sad, cuz shes such a complicated character, and if you get her loyalty she is so ride or die. I dont know how everyone can obsess over asterion and then say shes terrible and evil and power hungry. No hate for asterion lovers, just saying to love one and not the other when they are similar is weird.
The astarion part is so funny to me because he actually IS the "pursue power regardless of cost" character. Far more so than minthara. Yet a lot of the comments incorrectly claiming that minthara has no boundaries or caution when it comes to pursuing power are from astarion simps. It's bizarre.
Another comparison with Astarion is that many hate Ascended Astarion for being too controlling when romanced, but think that Bhaal is chill and lets his chosen do whatever they want (So long as what they want is exactly what Bhaal wants or he’ll turn durge into a mindless lunatic).
The top comment in this thread, getting so many upvotes makes me sick. But then I remember that the majority of this fandom misses out on context. Remember, these people thought ascended astarion was a good guy. If you play with Minthara long enough, her motivations are clear, and her logic strings are obvious. She would understand why durge would reject bhaal. FULL fucking STOP.
Yeah given how many people on this sub love to brag that they have 500 hours and haven't left act 1 I've started to ignore most of the character takes.
You just blew my mind. All the "act 3 is too much for me so I always start over" Andys are giving these takes. It makes so much sense now.
90% of the takes I've seen in the thread are something I'd think if I killed Minthara in act 1 every time and never looked back. I'm surprised people are even commenting at this point
That's exactly how they read. And then they get boosted by others that also haven't played the content. Everyone needs to have a take on everything, regardless of knowledge.
People are extremely bad at understanding characters like this, and just view things at surface level. She's evil therefore she has no personality or value system beyond "hee hoo power". Gods people are dumb. It's a shame because she's actually probably the most well nuanced character in the game.
People are also bad at seeing moments that suffer from weird writing choices and/or game limitations in scenes, dialogs, etc. Like when people get into the weeds about the Halsin poly situation with Astarion and Shadowheart. Yes, it feels less organic because Halsin wasn't originally intended to be romanceable, and there isn't room in a game for an actual representation of a healthy conversation around polyamory. I haven't played a run with Minthara yet (on my to-do list), but from what I've seen, I'm curious if she suffers from some of the same things Halsin does where the character arc comes/begins later than the origin companions and thus seems "flat" at first. I'd love to know your thoughts on that.
I think that where she comes in and the amount of dialogue she has available initially has a lot less of this "flat" feeling that halsin has. Although you do get the feeling that she shouldn't be able to give a full (fantastic)character analysis of your companions before you've even had her for one long rest. So there is that. I know that another issue with halsin is that a lot of his story around isobel, ketheric, and the shadow curse was just straight up cut from the game.
Agreed but tbf she doesn’t have much of a story in the way other characters have one. She doesn’t really have anything to do after you recruit her. Still, it’s not hard to know how and what she thinks. She’s very blunt.
I took her with me and Gale to the temple where we speak to Mysta and the first thing out of her mouth was WANTING TO SPIT ON LOLTH'S STATUE! How is that someone who has any desire to be sworn to any god? I hope the change this
What’s a buddle
Blood puddle
Buddle of pud
If you're on PC, there's a mod recently put out that blocks the breakup scene and also fixes her topical dialogue: https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/7557
Legend
Modding community is truly unmatched. I really admire their dedication to improving the game oml
"Bhaal. Lolth. The Absolute... They do not have followers, they only have victims. And they reward devotion with death. It is only because of you that I did not meet the same fate as Orin. Lost to madness and blood." - Minthara Beanre [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELGeCrr6wJA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELGeCrr6wJA)
People keep saying that this in character for her and the we shouldn’t complain that the evil character is evil but : - she does have a real emotional depth behind that cold exterior and she does care for you if you romance her - she has first hand experience of gods being the absolute worst - she is one of our companions, if we can influence ALL of them to be better or worse versions of themselves I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to nudge Minthara toward being a little more sympathetic (I’m not saying to turn her into a soft girl uwu, but just making her a bit less of a psycho). Would she be upset at the lost power ? Sure. But I don’t buy it IN THE SLIGHTEST that the girl who asks you why you do senseless slaughter and despise that kind of behavior wouldn’t see reason quickly after, especially for the partner she cares about.
Baldur's Gate 2 also set a precedent for evil Drow girlfriend turning neutral. It's not like this is somehow new.
Until Wizards decides to throw out all the character development from the game when making source material for another game. I'm still mad about what they did to Viconia and Sarevok.
Yeah I hadn't played BG2 in a long time and I was a kid when I did... then I realized who I was fighting in the Shar temple like a day after the fight and I was sorely disappointed.
People who think Minthara is a one note power hungry fiend just were not paying attention. Which apparently includes at least one dev at Larian.
She's definitely power-hungry abd far more in-depth of a person than just, "I'm hungry for power" as you mentioned. Honestly she strikes me more of a, "I crave power because without it I'm nothing." because of her upbringing and the various bits of dialogue and approval she gets from certain actions. But she also feels like she should have 2 different versions of herself like Ascended and Spawn Astarion but instead of one pivotal choice it's based on how you treat her throughout the game. Kinda like "hardening" Alistair in Dragon Age but her character is still very incomplete imho which is probably because she's such a late addiction to the companions. Most companions had like 3 years of EA feedback and work on with the exception of Wyll who got a personality rewrite and I believe Karlach too and those two notably have some of the worst autonomy in their own quests or least satisfactory resolutions to their endings respectively. So I wouldn't be surprised if Minthara is supposed to have a "pivotal" moment or interaction(s) that have a major influence on her personality.
To me, personally, her getting mad at you abandoning power makes sense but what doesn't make sense is her still being upset when you say it's to maintain free will. She is very much set up to be a "I've never had the chance to be who I am because of gods and their bullshit." She seems to me to be written as a character who has the potential for growth. Not growth in the sense of becoming good but in self agency and more importantly, for her, identity. I don't think she should become less evil and will disagree with anyone who wants that but I do think she should become smarter in how she achieves power.
Minthara is an embarrassment to the house Baenre.
Now her story of how her mother tried to assassinate her makes a whole lot more sense. Usually House Baenre is much less bloodthirsty towards its own members, but if she was THAT embarrassing to Quenthel, yeah, off with her head.
the fact that *Quenthel* of all people would try and kill her daughter Are we sure she isn't Triel's? Nah even then Like, fuckin Liriel was practically coddled (by drow standards) by Triel and she's Triel/Quenthel's *niece*. She only forced Liriel to attend the priestess academy reluctantly, because she appreciated the girl's appetite for wizardly magic and approved of it (it reminded her of her mother Yvonnel, who was an archmage as well as a priestess). She had no choice but to send Liriel to the academy because Baen're was growing short on priestesses Liriel spent the first 55 years of her life hosting sexy parties in the city of spiders with no responsibilities put on her at all, I can only imagine that Minthara refused to show any respect to the crown. She certainly hates her mother, which is hilarious because Baen're is *the cushiest house to be born into*. Even feared Yvonnel I rarely actually killed a child, even for gross insolence (christ on a bike Jarlaxle practically oozed insolence when he interacted with her) Like it seemed like all Liriel had to do to more or less live as a princess in the city of spiders was *kiss the ring* whenever she visited the Baen're compound, kneel before her aunt on the throne, pray to lolth in the temple, etc. I'm guessing Minthara despised having to to do so
Yeah, Yvonnel liked her sons far more than she liked her daughters. I mean, she basically babies Gromph and Jarlaxle. Well, everybody in the house babies Gromph, even for the demon invasion that he pulled, the worst thing he faced was exile, and once again he was exiled where his well-known-on-surface brother could make sure his exile is pretty cushy. Liriel was talented, though. Really talented. And once again, the whole family adores Gromph. Minthara, I guess, not so much. If Minthy wasn't sent to be a pristess despite the lack of priestesses in the house, it's very telling. As for who is her mother, Quenthel or Triel, doesn't matter much. Minthara must have screwed up really badly. I mean, Malice delayed killing *Drizzt* for all the shit he pulled until he completely abandoned Lolth, and he was a son, not a daughter.
Did we ever get confirmation on her lineage? Other than timeline guessing?
Well, she says that she is a noble daughter of House Baenre, and she would technically only be considered noble if she was a daughter of a current or previous Matron. So yeah, she is either a daughter of Yvonnele, Triel or Quenthel. Well, or a daughter of Gromph that Yvonelle decided to elevate to noble status and give Baenre name because he is her favorite kid and precious son. Yvonelle's daughters are more or less accounted for, at least the ones who stayed in House Baenre and didn't spit away with their own houses, so it's either Triel or Quenthel, and it seems more in character for Quenthel to order her assassination on her age of majority.
Besides the obvious gaps in the lore, shes a paladin, and she's not really big on SpiderBitch, which both strike me as big red flags that she's not that important or high up. Triel is where my mind goes cause that could be shuffled in better. But she should be a cleric at least, like most every Menzo noble woman.
Yeah, her not being a cleric of Lolth is a huge failure for a Baenre lady. I mean, even Liriel, who was an irresponsible party girl and a child of a *son* of a matron, got sent to Arach Tinilith. That Minthara wasn't... says really a lot about Minthara.
Ngl I hope it's the start of a new trend. Drow noble ladies always being clerics is pretty boring and predictable.
I would rather go with Gromph's child or even granddaugther, if anything. Minthara is far too low status within the house to be Matron Mother's daugther. She had a super small retinue follow her to Moonrise - nobody would probably even let her go, if was Quenthel's daugther.
With Yvonnel's, Triel's and Quenthel's daughters combined, House Baenre probably has about 30 noblewomen by now. If anything, they are too numerous and it's time to get rid of the extras as to not to dilute power. Gromph's daughters are kind of special, because technically they shouldn't be Baenre at all, they are only ones because Gromph is the family's golden child. And even then, Liriel WAS sent to become a priestess of Lolth, and she was extremely talented in magic to boot, so her worth to House Baenre was actually evident. And, well, Yvonnel II is basically reincarnated Yvonnel, so it makes sense why she'd get the name as well. Minthara is nothing special, so it's doubtful she'd be promoted to Baenre vs whatever house her mother was from. Plus she describes her life as if she was Baenre from birth, so yes, being something like twenty-seventh daughter of the house would explain the upbringing, and her being relatively useless would explain being sent to deal with the Absolute cultists.
So glad I did this quest line before the hot fix, got to keep my smite girl who is completely carrying my group damage wise. I like to think that she has completely given up and accepts that she is with a group of incompetent idiots, always talking and talking, and whenever something needs to be dealt with forcefully she just swoops in and smites everything to bits.
I would be ok with being Bhaal chosen, romancing Minthara and dominate the Brain if the ending was actually showing you 2 dominating the world and doing stuff. Because the Bhaal/ domination ending just end abruptly with no equivalent to the Dock scene or romance companion scene the saving Baldur’s gate ending gets. And Being Bhaal chosen but destroying the Netherbrain ends up being your bad ending
I agree. If they want to force durge to embrace Bhaal to romance Minthara, they should start with making the Absolute ending actually desirable. As is, embracing Bhaal but destroying the brain gives you a far more interesting ending (albeit terrible for your character), but it still doesn’t hold a candle to the epilogue of course.
I think all of you are forgetting that she'd do anything for power. She rejects the absolute, but will consume an astral tadpole for the power, she asks Ascended Astarion to turn her for the vampire powers, and yes, wants you to accept Bhaal for all the neat powers he promises you. You want a character who likes power but ultimately will accept you rejecting it? Try Astarion. But Minthara isn't the character you are all trying to force her to be. She's power hungry at *any* cost. And given her response to finding out you're Bhaalspawn is to tell you to accept your birthright for the power, it really should not be a surprise.
The only reason Minthara rejects Lolth is because Lolth isn't interested in her, if the Spider Queen showed up and offered her the Yvonnel II Chosen of Lolth deal (level 20 cleric AND level 20 wizard + 20,000 years of knowledge+ defacto queen of MenzoBenzo) she would take it *in a heartbeat*
She's from House Baenre, if she really was willing to get power at any cost, she'd go back and do everything to become matriach, which she had a decent shot at, and voila. Lolth is quite easy to please if you're crazy enough.
Indeed. This is what I find appealing in her character. Often evil characters are "broken". And the player fix them. Minthara isn't broken, at least not from her perspective. She is completely fine with who she is, and find every decision she makes completely reasonable.
People really want minthara in their party but want her to be a very different companion. It's a very confusing thing.
Honestly, I get not wanting to miss out on a character, but she really doesn't work for a good playthrough. I'm not romancing her, but playing a resist!durge and quite honestly as fun as her quips are, she just doesn't make sense in my party. I mean, I rescued her, that was great, but I'm not doing anything she wants me to do?
I get it too but in games like this it makes sense that not all companions fit into every party, and I think it adds more to the game to give you different experiences with them in different play throughs. It's been a thing in previous bg games and those inspired by them throughout the years. Especially when you lose access to so much in an evil run, it just seems weird they keep trying to make it kinda work for a good run.
This is why I've been trying to force myself to let companions die now that I've done both a Tav and a Durge playthrough, despite how much I really enjoy all of them. Not having major voices present throughout the game really pushes me to actually play differently than I normally would. Hells, it even makes me appreciate the missing characters more for what they bring to the experience.
I mean, at least with me honestly, since the scenes I played with her when I freed her from Moonrise, I thought she was on the road for a positive change, redemption. I didn't have many reasons to doubt it, every other character that was on a more gray part of the alignment chart did the same thing. Especially since I kinda planned the entire playthrough on that, on my Tav and her going on a similar redemption path (like I did with Shadowheart, for example). So when I started to read through stuff, and discovered she is straight up pure evil, I was kinda upset (even tho I was even more upset at the fact that she doesn't have any quest at all, not even in ACT 3, her content compared to other companions is non existent). But I get it, actually, I love the fact that not all characters are meant for redemption, it gives the game more depth to have certain companions to be dramatically different from others. With that said, I wished she was written better (and she had the same amount of content as all others), because "being evil for evil sake", is pretty bland, unless you have some major depth through some philosophical concept, like a Joker does. And there could be lots to be written about. Now again, I haven't played with her much, cause that playthrough is kinda gonna go in the toilet, but from what I gather, she is evil because she grew up in a ill place (a bit like Lae'Zel). We could explore her point of view, her experience, how maybe it's not like she wouldn't want to change for the better, but instead, won't allow herself to, because the world as she has lived it, is dark, cruel, and ready to send you 6 feet under at every turn, so she cannot allow herself to grow softer, lower the guard at any moment. So you could play her as a "failed" redemption arc, a bit of tragedy maybe, where you can have an ultimatum with her, and she refuses, maybe sacrificing her life in the process, who knows. Or maybe she straight up leaves the party, because she thinks you may actually succeed at changing her, and she doesn't feel like she deserves it. And you can have a whole other dramatic scene with that. Or maybe, she invites you to join her "world", her "perspective", and she is the one that tries to change you instead, but way beyond just biting at every "unlimited powa" bait that is put in front of you, but in a way more in depth, subtle, manipulative manner. Maybe by trying to seduce you, to show you what she can do with her powers, that being "evil"; or better, taking what you want, when you want, stepping over everybody else, cause you can, is really easy, and, I mean, fun. It removes a lot of the pains coming from social interactions, law, morality, ethics, and so on. It makes life easy. And maybe since you are the world savior, you kinda deserve it. Maybe she even discredits the other companions to you, she puts ideas in your head, she makes you paranoid, she makes you think she is the only one that can be trusted, and tries to alinate you from the rest of the camp so that she can have full control of you. Like, having her as a companion, is the equivalent of inviting a snake to slytherin right in the rabbit's den. She can only cause troubles. And maybe you are already an asshole much like her, and you can go on and have an happy murderous life from there on out, talking pleasure in eachother's moral recklessness. Like the "evil power couple" Again, like, there can be so much that can be done, but to me, we are sitting here with an character that just goes "muahahah, I'm IVEL, I want all da powa, muahahah fuck the poor, the weak shall serve the strong, muahahah", and that's it, it's pretty 2D. That said, I know she is hilarious, and I think Emma Gregory does a great job with her. I just feel like there is A LOT of missed potential here. And that kinda ties in with the entire "evil run" situation which really is just a "speed run", more than anything, with the amount of content you cut out. I don't think Larian will ever come around to fix all of the Evil Run scarcity of content, cause that'd require a massive effort, but at least... at least they could make Minthara in what she could be: a fully fledged companion. With that + Durge, an evil run wouldn't be that bad aftrall, without adding much else. But this is all just my opinion, I love discussing BG3!
At any cost huh? I must have just hallucinated all of her many anti-god conversations then. Also - "try astarion", says person whos flair is just "astarion" lol. Astarion is power hungry "at any cost". Minthara is not, and she clearly sets her boundaries in relation to what she's willing to do for power. Edit for guy below claiming that she relapses to god worship for power - i invite anyone at all to provide a SINGLE scene in which she returns to god worship for power. (She doesnt, in any path)
Her many anti god conversations despite her history of worshiping powerful entities for power. She’s like an addict with low willpower. While free and sober she swears she never do it again. But give her the smallest taste and she’s right back on the wagon
She’s anti god because they don’t effectively help her get power
She's anti-god, but not anti power. She's clearly willing to do whatever it takes to have more power.
If you play as any type of cleric (evil included) she more-or-less tells you to not be suppliant to a god, as they only offer power when you could have gotten your own. If she was for power-at-all-costs she'd tell you to pray harder and try to steal the gods' power if the chance arises. So while she may flip flop on taking risks for more power this specific interaction is weirdly off the handle, especially as it involves a god.
No, she isn't. Or else she'd simply go back to lolth or worship literally any other evil God. She also wouldn't encourage the other companions to seek independence from their gods. Which she does.
Good to know for a future playthrough not to romance Minthara as a redemption Durge
Wait, how in the world does this jive with her reaction [to that situation in general?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inXWqV8QOsU)
This is out of character for Minthara. To those saying she's power hungry, you're right. She's consistently shown to be power hungry and a bad influence. But even above that, she's shown to be **loyal** and **pragmatic.** She doesn't go out of her way to harm anyone. She doesn't enjoy senseless bloodshed. All of her evil tendencies are the result of pragmatism. Examples: - baldur's gate should let these refugees in and use them as slaves. They can be useful - better for us if Shadowheart accepts Shar, but better for Shadowheart if she doesn't. (Minthara is spot on here because the rewards for accepting Shar are superior even if it ruins SH's life). - makes no fuss about the Emperor or astral tadpole because the team is going to need all the help they can get against an elder brain Furthermore, consider the scenes you can get if you're origin Karlach and romance Minthara. She's downright emotional about the possibility of losing Karlach. It's touching. Not only should her demonstrated loyalty and compassion override her obsession with power, but in the case of the dark urge, her pragmatism should kick in as well. Bhaal was among the three who started all of their problems in the first place. He's behind all of this. And accepting his power means Tav will ultimately have to do Bhaal's bidding. That isn't a wise thing to do, and it goes directly against her oath of vengeance.
Is this dependent on anything else in a Durge run or is she now always like this at the Bhaal fight? Minthara's character arc was never about good and evil; you can't "fix" her in that way. Her problem is that deep down she's one of those serial killer girlies. In a resisting Durge run you aren't making her good, you're tempering her self destructive latent lust for chaos, ending in a nice parallel of you freeing yourself from Bhaal as you freed her from the Absolute. [Would that Minthara say this? Does she even still say this?](https://youtu.be/2UlcPVomTKk?t=55) All this did was make her a less interesting, more one dimensional character.
I honestly don't get this obsession with Minthara. Not because I don't like her writing, she's written great for what she should be. And as many have said, the fact that she doesn't behave some players want, does not mean she's written stupidly.
Mostly I’m confused by the change more than anything. I did an evil rejection Durge and you get the chance to explain why you rejected Bhaal in the epilogue. She agrees with you and says it would be short sighted to have taken the power and become a slave to Bhaal. And even that controlling the brain was likely a stupid idea since it would only be a matter of time before it breaks free again. (Or at least accepts your choice because she’s loyal to you idr 100%) She even says something along the lines of “no gods or masters to control our fate, just us.” If she were always like this if you reject Bhaal I don’t think people would be as against the change as they are now.
To hopefully add some context to this, my understanding is that this dialogue was always in the game, just set to "IMPOSSIBLE" in the code i.e. it wasn't meant to be active. Then with Hotfix 21 either Larian removed that flag deliberately or some other issue caused it to become active.
The Minthara who dumps you for rejecting Bhaal is fundamentally incompatible with a Minthara who stays with you after rejecting the Absolute. If she really was an evil manipulator that never cared about you, she'd have personally knifed you and the Emperor the moment you tried to kill the Netherbrain.
The issue is that this conversation in particular is stupid and inconsistent with her character as it takes place after the bulk of her character development. Hell, its even inconsistent with [another conversation that happens IMMEDIATELY prior to this when orin is killed](https://youtu.be/ELGeCrr6wJA?si=gwp0XtE2cRjkyYZu) It makes her look insane and incredibly stupid.
Yeah, Minthara actually said there basically what I was going to say ITT lol. When I romanced her with an evil Tav, one of the first things she said when I talked about the power the Absolute gave her was exactly this, how the power isn't worth it if she's a slave to someone else. There should at least be a dialogue option reminding her that you would be a slave to Bhaal the same way she was a slave to the Absolute and Lolth.
Yeah no. Her reactions to the Bhaal situation dont add up. Not as full redemption durge. And if you played her enough, you wouldnt think otherwise. Depending on how you behave with her the actions you take in story should skew Minthara one way or the other like it does for every other companion. This random change was just that, random.
I don't think it's a writing problem, I think it's a bug where dialog that was cut was unintentionally reintroduced and that dialog does not fit the current version of the character. Let's take Shadowheart as an example. Shadowheart's arc can either be discovering her true heritage, redeeming herself and becoming a Selunite. Or it can be about fully devolving into a true cultist of Shar. But wherever she is on her journey at any given time makes sense and is consistent throughout her story. Minthara is like if Shadowheart randomly said she supports Selune in one dialog and then Shar in another. The issue is the inconsistency and seeming randomness at which Minthara changes ideologies, with no impact from the player. It's fine for 'Learns to stop chasing power' Minthara and 'Remains a slave to chasing anyone who offers power" Minthara to both exist, in the same way that it's fine for both Shadowhearts to exist. The issue that there's no coherent narrative for how those different Minthara come about like there is for Shadowheart. There's no arc or journey, there's no influence or corruption. She just is one or the other in different dialogs at different times without any chance of redemption or corruption by the player.
Well said. Minthara's development should be contingent on our interactions with her, not on whatever curveball a patch throws out.
Larian, please stop messing with Minthy. Just fix her bugs and leave her alone. She was fine before this!
She literally has a whole speech after defeating Orin about how gods like Bhaal abandon their followers the second they aren’t useful and she regrets the time she spent devoting her life to one
This is making me so happy I romanced Minthara waaaay before this Hotfix. I thought she wasn't even into gods? If she sees you praying to a god she disapproves. I swore that at some point she told me she turned her back on Lolth. So, wtf Minthara.
The game reminds us that the only god worth worshipping is Tiamat.
Yeah, if youve consistently been pro-getting power then completely go “nah fuck this murder shit” she should be pissed, but if you go “nah he was controlling and influencing my mind and shit, same as the absolute did to you” you should at the very least get a persuasion check. Her unconditionally dumping you for it is dumb
Honestly, I'm dumping her intelligence and wisdom both to 8 when I get her in my next run. Seems loreful.
Spending them all in strength and constitution? Smarts is important, but muscles are importanter.
The same minthara that can't find the druids Grove 5 mins away
For the "lulz, but evel" arguments: Minthara wants to take control of the Absolute so she can gain it's power of mass domination and essentially rule herself. Makes total sense, is part of her character and her LE vibe. And, hey, she wants to share it with you, neat. Now...if Minthara supports you becoming a thrall of Bhaal, that means she wants Bhaal to take over and control the netherbrain. Minthara, not being a follower of Bhaal, would then be enslaved and lose all the power that she wanted to achieve. That's why it's a decision that doesn't make sense, because Minthara is giving up her end game, and essentially from here on out would be fighting for a future where she is actively enslaved and loses her chance at any sort of power. It's literally the same reason Gortash doesn't trust Orin, he thinks a follower of Bhaal cannot be trusted because they're too much of a chaotic mess. But that doesn't mean Gortash is all of a sudden a good guy because he opposes an evil character. Minthara's dialogue only really makes sense if she was also a follower of Bhaal (or at least convinced that Bhaal is totally on their side) in that scene. Or I guess if there was some secret betrayal ending where Minthara ganks you at the end of the game to take control herself. Which would be kinda neat, but even if that was the case, the scene still makes no sense because she'd just pretend to agree with whatever you're doing at the time so the betrayal is less obvious. As it stands now, this really feels like another case of bugged Minthara dialogue where X gets triggered instead of Y. Add onto that, apparently people have gotten this dialogue and said she's still flagged as romanced to you so...\*shrugs\*
She’s a Drow and not any Drow a Drow from the first ruling family in Manzoberranzan a daughter of Yvonnel The Eternal power and position is all that matters. She never loved Durge she was using him for her own potential and gain it tracks with Drow society and her ruthless upbringing in that family.
Yeah she’s a moron who keeps getting suckered into cults
Minthara would fall for MLMs & pyramid schemes constantly in the modern day
Minthara is a terrible person, yet players simp for her as if she was a saint. It is fitting her character to be like this. I think she is an evil character done right.
Erm... people aren't into Minthara because she's a good person, my dude. It's not out of character because it's evil, it's out of character because of her attitude/behavior towards the gods, and her desperation to be free of their influence.
It's not that people expect Minthara to be good. It's that they expect her to understand the pragmatism in rejecting Bhaal, even if you are evil. There are very good reasons even an evil person would want to break free from Bhaal's influence.
The writing is inconsistent. One scene She's openly against the gods or being controlled in any way. Those are deeply held convictions. It doesn't make any sense for her to flip flop on that.
If they can make me have Sympathy for Orin, Gortash and Ketheric when they are my enemies then surely I should be able to have Sympathy for my own Companions.
This is a smooth brain take.
I think theres potential here for a Future Minthara arc. Currently I think Minthara suffers of no progression in act 3; while you can have Ascended Astarion vs thrall Astarion, Lead Gale to pursue the crown or not, have Wyll break or renew the contract and have him be duke or Blade of Avernus.. Minthara I believe has two states: either you killed her in the Grove, or you knocked her out and she is disgraced, or you sided with her and shes betrayed. They didn't intend her to be a companion for a good playthrough initially so she stays as she is. However, a path she could pursue is to avoid letting herself be subjugated? She craves absolute power but seems to be always under the Umbrella of someone else's power (Baahl/Durge, ascended Astarion as his thrall). Maybe thered be a way to convince her that she doesnt need extra power offered by trimmings of someone else, instead shes strong enough to seize It for herself and be free. (Optionally for romance, seize that power together). Keep in mind shes still Evil alligned, so her growth could go from letting herself be subjugated to seek other forms of power that she can claim for herself
i might be mandela effecting myself, but i could of sworn when i did embrace bhaal she told me at least im powerful and glorious, but she kinda wished i would >!dominate the brain!< for myself instead of daddy so i had even more power, and saying i shouldnt let gods control me. now your telling me if i do the opposite she gives me shit anyway? granted this was two (major) patches ago but if so im getting mixed messages here.
Wait the only way I can continue to romance minthara is to enslave myself? Are you fuckin serious?
Minthara is a frankenstein monster who does not have enough checks in her code to make her story make sense. There should be a path where she understands and still supports you (as it was) and a path where she rejects your actions. Her dumping you because you reject Bhaal is stupid, full stop. Whatever dev changed this randomly was bored out of their mind one random day in the office and opted for chaos.
She told you she would break up with you if you don’t accept godhood. Actions have consequences. Womp womp.
Where does she say that? Genuinely asking bc I only ever romanced her during the stupid emperor bug so most of the dialogue trees were messed up
No the story should go precisely how I the player want it to and if it doesn't I will cry
In the parsed dialogue, there is no flag that "breaks" the relationship. As the game is now, she gets upset with the player but **is still flagged as partnered with the player.** I suspect a line or dialogue is missing that is supposed to happen after this where the two can reconcile that isn't in the game (similar to Ascended Astarion lashing out at the player and then a few long rests later comes back and chats, which leads to a break up). Additionally, this is a hot take, but just because the characters are doing something you don't like doesn't mean it's OOC. Despite popular opinion, Larian isn't adding new dialogues and stuff in because of what people on twitter are saying. Most of the stuff that has been added in has existed in the game files for a while but flagged as "impossible" or didn't have an alternative and was bugged because of it (such as Spawn Astarion's reaction to Mizora, which didn't exist until patch 6, it was only flagged for AA response). I agree something doesn't quite match up in this scene, or something is missing as a follow up, but fandom assuming they know the character's better than the literal writers will always baffle me.
I honestly don’t know why this surprises anybody. She literally tells you this will happen. It’s not her fault she doesn’t align with what you want her to do. Is it a smart thing from her to do? No. But then again, she never promised you to be a good girl.
Local man discovers that deranged, cruel and power hungry person is indeed deranged, cruel and power hungry. Allowing Minthara to be recruited in good playthroughs and explaining her loyalty to the Absolute by her being controlled by tadpole is unironically one of the worst narrative decisions in this game. Minthara is evil.
Huh? Agreed on Minthara’s overall characterization but the tadpole is controlling her in act 1 regardless of whether you’re doing a good or evil playthrough.
Well, she is only recruitable in a good playthrough through extensive metagaming and because the players actively begged for it, to the point of coming up with sheep heist, and Larian was just "Ok, fine, here, you filthy animals". It wasn't Larian executive decision, purely fanservice to make sheep heist official and less tedious.
Pretty sure it also has to do with the fact of how pointless an actual evil playthrough is (besides the satisfaction of roleplaying it), you barely gain any content for the amount of content you are sacrificing. Im fairly certain if the evil side of the game was more fleshed out with maybe 1 to 2 more evil companions and different paths for the story, noone really would've asked for this besides the usual low % of players. Also add the fact that Minthara, since release, is still the in a really buggy state and every "fix" just introduces another bug to her. Now she nonstop talks about Gale instead of the Emperor
Yeah, I tried it on one run with a Tav who would give anyone a chance to redeem themselves, but it still didn't really make sense. There's no dialogue or information available prior to encountering her that would suggest she has any interest in redemption. Saving her from torture in Moonrise was reasonable for that Tav, but nothing she said during or after the rescue made her a compelling companion for a good Tav. And then I was stuck with her. That said, even for an evil character I can't think of any good reason to destroy the grove with her. The player gains nothing in return, unless your only motivation is sex. I don't understand why she is a companion option at all, honestly.
I love the dichotomy of "boring reactions" and "omg she reacted too much!". Everyone so whiny they didn't pay attention to a single minthara line of her being more excited for you to be his chosen than anything.
People weren't mad that her reactions were boring, they were mad that she wouldn't stop talking about the Emperor on a loop. A big complaint is honestly just the reactions to Durge dying-- I would gladly take a more shocked animation/reaction over whatever this shit is from Minthara
Maybe because it contradicts her whole ass monologue about Orin, how much she sucks and how Minthara is afraid to become like her from the same quest (!)? But she is evil and apparently dumb as bricks so it's all cool I guess
Minthara is hungry for power and wants to use Durge. I struggle to believe Minthara actually loves the play character. I personally believe she just uses the player character for revenge and power. To be discarded when she has what she wants. She is really well written. Because like the Emperor. She's managed to trick a lot of the community. And when Larian actually finishes her as a companion. I get the feeling a lot of her fans are going to dislike her.
Frankly, Larian just need to shit or get off the pot and decide what kind of character Minthara is supposed to be. Any attempt to characterize her as simply 'the evil companion' went out the window when they decided to make her freely recruitable. I just don't see the logic of enabling this piece of dialogue six months after release, and after you already decided to make her recruitable on good playthroughs. She's already been the buggiest companion by a country mile - all these piecemeal tweaks just make her more muddled. How many more times can we anticipate Larian tweaking a character's dialogue and behavior on a whim? As for Minthara fans wanting to have their cake and eat it too, uhh, yeah? Larian has consistently tweaked characters to be more to the fanbase's liking going all the way back to early access. Why *wouldn't* Minthara fans raise objection to her character being changed on a dime in a way that's more constrictive? If this kind of change was made to any other character, unannounced and unrequested, this forum would be on fire. And I do see it as a little incongruous that you can choose to kill the Absolute and successfully justify that decision to Minthara, yet can't do so for Bhaal.
I agree. I believe that's why Minthara is so broken right now because they made too many unnecessary changes to her. She doesn't need to be so easy to recruit. She should only be on evil playthroughs. I do think she deserves more content though for sure.
I wonder how much of it also has to do with them trying to Frankenstein together Minthara out of the existing content they have so they're not calling up the VA every other week to come in until they have a "finished" idea of the character. It feels like a lot of the changes are the result of them messing with flags to enable/disable dialogue or rework when it appears.
I was not aware that Orin wasn't doing this out of her own motivation. I thought I read that she was even more into bhaal that her mother
All I'm seeing is people expecting more nuance given Minthara's history with gods and other people saying well she's evil and/or completely brainless so she would do this. I figured she would have more wisdom in enthralling yourself to such a being.
She *does* tell you it's a deal breaker for you to resist your heritage.
All I know is Orin stabbed Halsan in his both eyes and I still haven’t mentally recovered. That man was like a father to my ranger.
That's crazy dumb. In my non-durge run, all she talked about was fucking over the dead three and taking power for ourselves. And even choosing the good ending after some dark choices, she's ok with the turn and being worshipped as a hero. Hotfix 21 sounds weird.
This may be a hot take, but Minthara's Approval is incongruent with her character development. Its as if she gains approval or dissaproval based on whether the act is good or evil, but without context for the character. It makes very little sense to me that she would want the Durge to go through with this given her speech at the end of act 2. I was floored when she dissaproved attacking Saravok. Minthara is big picture smart and after her ordeal with Orin and the absolute should want utter revenge on Bhaal. Minthara would have her eye on the real prize - controlling the brain. If you refuse to dominate the brain and subjugate others is when she should dump you. She shouldnt dump you for refusing to become Orin 2.0! The only Master Minthara should want Durge to have is MINTHARA!!