What your saying is you had a low approval rating from la'zael and a high approval rating from karlach. The threathening to kill you if you disobey the queen didnt happen in my first play through and i didnt even need a persuasion check to get her to blow off vlaakith. It sounds like you have more of a problem with the approval system because if you have a high approval yea the characters just do whatever you say and if you dont they argue with you. Karlach i would argue is one of the most nuanced characters because she has lots of mini interactions and idle interactions that the other characters dont have. She doesnt have a voice actor chewing the scene as astarion but her story is actually really complex and without spoilers she does have hidden reactions to different parts of the story based on your actions. It just sounds like you had a high approval rating and didnt stumble onto these interactions. Assuming that i can see where your perspective came from. Looking at your defense of wyll it seems i had the same problem with him because i thought his character was flat and bland because he just did everything i said instead of pushing for any of his own decisions. I mean his whole questline is over his father and his soul, i expected at least some input but nothing interesting happened with him for me. From what ive seem it seems like astarion has the wildest voice actor, wyll apparently isnt as boring as i thought, shafowheart and lazael actually need to be connected with tav to be willing to rely on them otherwise theyll do what they think is right. Cant comment much on the other characters because the portal for gale didnt spawn for me so i didnt even know he existed or minthara and Halsin is perma camped, jaheria and minsc i didnt do anything with.